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Translating race, class, and immigrant lives: the family work of children language brokers

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Translating race, class, and immigrant lives: the family work of children language brokers

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Content TRANSLATING RACE, CLASS, AND IMMIGRANT LIVES:
THE FAMILY WORK OF CHILDREN LANGUAGE BROKERS
by
Hyeyoung Kwon
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SOCIOLOGY)
December 2015
ii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements iii

Abstract vi

Chapter 1: Translating Race, Class, and Immigrant Lives 1

Chapter 2: Different Racialization and Relationality:
Mexican-and Korean-Americans in Los Angeles 20

Chapter 3: Familial Double Bind:
The Work of Children in Immigrant Families 39

Chapter 4: Doing American from an Outsider-within Position 71

Chapter 5: American Dream and Inclusion Work 100

Chapter 6: Learning from Children Language Brokers 136

Bibliography 149

iii

Acknowledgements

In my seven years at graduate school, I came across many challenges that I refuse to recall. But
every time I encountered new challenges, many people just magically appeared in my life and
provided me with generous and unconditional support. I want to first thank my committee
members. First and foremost, I want to thank my chair, Leland Saito, who is very down to earth
yet provided critical comments on my project for many years. Special thanks to Leland for
pushing me to develop a comparative study between the lives of Korean and Mexican language
brokers. My comparative analysis of these two differently racialized groups certainly made this
project a lot more interesting and nuanced. Next, I want to thank Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo.
My project developed in her qualitative class in my second year of graduate school. She
immediately saw the potential in this project and provided me with critical feedback and
expertise when I was not sure what I was really doing. She read my transcripts, helped me code
some of the data in the initial stage, and read multiple drafts that didn’t quite make sense at the
time. My very first published paper on childhood was developed in her class. Sharon Hays also
immediately saw promise in this project when she read my proposal. I am grateful for her
empathy and her passion for social justice. As I was developing different chapters of the
dissertation, Sharon read my drafts, introduced me to sociology of culture, and provided me with
critical feedback and unfailing support. Sharon always reminded me that I am an “outsider-
within” in sociology and pushed me to see how my personal experiences could serve as a
strength in academia. I also want to thank Veronica Terriquez, who taught me how to conduct
interviews and write for an academic audience. As with many other mentors, her door was
always open (partly because she was working in her office until very late at night). As a visual
person, she drew charts for me when I was agonizing over how to analyze my interview data. I
iv

also want to thank George Sanchez, who inspired me to pursue my doctoral degree. I took his
Race and Los Angeles class at UCLA while I was getting my master’s degree in Asian American
studies. His passion for underrepresented students in academia, together with his extraordinary
skill in motivating students, helped me get to where I am. His critical remark during my proposal
defense, “You must look at what does not get translated,” helped me develop my favorite
chapter. Rhacel Parrenas, who joined the department as I was finishing the dissertation, was also
instrumental in my final stage of graduate school. Rhacel generously offered comments on my
project and encouraged me to “shoot high.” I thank Marjorie Faulstich Orellana whose
pioneering work on language brokers inspired my own research and writing. Marjorie was and
continued to be my inspiration. Anthony Ocampo was my “unofficial” mentor during the most
difficult stage in my graduate school career. I thank him for encouragement and the gift of
friendship that I continue to treasure.
Very special thanks to my best writing group. I could not have finished this project
without the support of Jess Butler and Michela Musto. We met on a regular basis, exchanged our
short memos, and provided each other with comments. Light-bulb moments came during my
discussions with Jess and Michela, and their sharp eyes and intellectual wisdom greatly
strengthened this research project. “Writing group” is probably not the best way to describe this
group, as they just jumped in to help me whenever I needed emotional support or practical
advice. They provided me with much-needed positive energy when I doubted myself and my
project. Thank you, Michela and Jess.
Finally, I want to thank my family. My mom never told me to do more or be better.
Instead, she always felt sorry that she couldn’t provide me with more resources. Yet she was
always very proud of me and believed in me. She also got up in the morning to cook for me and
v

cleaned my room when I was in graduate school. I pretended that I hadn’t read Sharon’s book on
intensive mothering. Thank you, Mom. I also want to thank my sister, Amy. She is truly the
“happy virus” in our family. She makes everyone laugh, and I admire her love for the family. I
also thank my cousin, Cathy Kim, who introduced me to her colleagues; she is a dedicated nurse
who has been my sounding board and companion. I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to
my life partner, Winston Lin. I am not in an equal relationship. Since we met eight years ago,
Winston has given me much more than I can give. His generosity and caring heart humble me
every day. As I always say, I thank him for “putting up” with me—with my crankiness, my
anxiety, and so much more. I feel fortunate to be walking on this journey together with my best
partner, and I thank him for all his unconditional love and support. Last but not least, I thank my
interviewees, who generously shared their intimate stories with me. I am not sure I can do justice
to everyone, but it is my hope that I can creatively use my social position to become a “language
broker” for working-class immigrant youths and translate their stories while exposing the larger
structure of multiple inequalities.

vi

Abstract
Immigrant childhood is often shaped by what many Americans view as “adult” responsibilities. Out
of necessity, many children of immigrants use their bilingual skills to navigate structural constraints
that impact their family lives. Based on ethnographic research at a police station as well as
interviews with 80 working-class Mexican- and Korean-American language brokers and 23
healthcare providers, this study examines how children language brokers understand and negotiate
the experience of translating for their immigrant parents in English-speaking spaces of America.
Focusing on everyday domesticity to racialized public encounters to life-threatening situations
involving health care access and police protection, the findings show that racial meanings, which
marginalize Mexican-Americans as a problematic underclass while extolling Asian-Americans as
successful foreigners, reverberate in the family lives of immigrant youth. In so doing, this
dissertation demonstrates that the long standing assimilation paradigm focusing on the cultural gap
between immigrant parents and their U.S.-raised children fails to capture the complicated processes
through which children of immigrants negotiate their family relations. Instead, I argue that
racialized nativism is at the heart of their family lives, constraining immigrant families’ access to
public resources and imposing a difficult double bind for children of immigrants. Whereas most
sociological studies on children of immigrants examine how well these children assimilate into U.S.
society, this study moves beyond an outcome-oriented framework, which, at its roots, is a story of
upward mobility. Employing intersectional and interactional approaches reveal that children of
immigrants are by no means passive recipients of “American” values, and they struggle to
reconstruct imposed racial meanings that shape their family relations. Ultimately, these approaches
bring preexisting social inequality back into the analysis, providing a new way of thinking about
immigrant youths’ agency.
1

Chapter 1: Translating Race, Class, and Immigrant Lives

This project focuses on working-class Mexican-and Korean-American “language
brokers” who grew up translating for their parents. Due to limited language resources available
to non-English speakers, and because U.S-raised children learn English faster than their
immigrant parents, many bilingual children of immigrants blur the socially constructed
boundaries of adulthood and childhood to serve as language brokers and use their bilingual skills
to navigate cultural and institutional realities that impact their family lives. Yet, the majority of
scholarship on immigration overlooks children’s contribution to their family settlement process
for at least three reasons. First, the majority of immigration scholarship is outcome-oriented,
focusing on how immigrant parents improve the life chances of their children. Second, although
children have long served as important workers and economic assets for their families, the work
and productivity of children today are understood to be hallmarks of America’s past (Zelizer
1985). Third, because children are seen as passive recipients of adult values, existing
scholarship often uses an adult-centered approach to understand behaviors and perceptions of
children (Thorne 1985; Morrow 1996; Orellana 2009). As a result, while a tremendous amount
of research on intergenerational relations has focused on the work that adult children shoulder
when their parents reach old age (for a recent review see Silverstein and Giarrusso, 2010),
children’s contributions to households have remained virtually invisible. How do bilingual
children facilitate the survival of working class immigrant families, and how do they make sense
of their experiences? How does interpreting, translating, and speaking for their parents influence
their perception of what it means to be an “American”? More broadly, what does it mean to
grow up with working-class, non-English speaking parents of color in racialized and English-
speaking America?
2

My central aim is to capture the complicated processes through which children of
immigrants at the margin negotiate and rearticulate the imposed differences of class, race, and
status in attempt to belong in an America that excludes their family and marginalizes their
experiences as both working-class children and racial minority. As I will show, youths’ struggles
to speak for and represent their family in public spaces and wider society are closely connected
with nation’s cultural visions of appropriate family which exclude working-class, non-English
speaking immigrants of color. Amid a context of systematic racism, growing nativism, and
cultural representation, which depict their families as “inassimilable,” “threats” or “economic
burdens,” these youth navigate inequalities, unequal power dynamic, and connect their parents to
institutional resources with varying degree of success.
Treating immigrant family as a central cite of marking difference, my work diverges from
the vast majority of scholarship on immigrants that focuses on assimilation gap between
immigrant parents and their U.S.-raised children. Instead, I argue that racialized nativism
(Sanchez 1997) and an ideology of “good” immigrants (Saito 2001) are at the heart of their
family lives, constraining immigrant families’ access to public resources and creating a difficult
double bind for working-class children of immigrants. This project, therefore, is meant to
challenge the conventional wisdom about working-class immigrant families and youth’s agency,
and to urge readers to re-evaluate one-sided assimilation determinism, which, at its root, is a
story of upward mobility.
Changing America
In the United States, the phrase “American family” conjures an image of English-
speaking, White, heterosexual, non-immigrant, middle-class people (Pyke 2000; Park 2005).
Such a family is comprised of a White male breadwinner, his stay-at-home wife, and their
3

dependent children. The parents in these “ideal” families unconditionally provide emotional and
monetary resources for their children. Their kids’ lives, therefore, revolve around a soccer mom,
a suburban house with a white picket fence, dogs, a backyard, and a swimming pool. Nowhere
in these images do parents struggle to make ends meet. Nor children work to ensuring their
families’ economic survival. As Bettie (2003: 6) argues, “the nostalgia present in family values
discourse holds, among other things, a desire for youth to adhere to a middle-class ideal of
appropriately timed life stage that includes an extended adolescence.”
Without a doubt, the “ideal” nuclear family is a statistically minority in the contemporary
United States. During the final third of the twentieth century, the institution of the family did
undergo a radical shift in form and function. For example, while three-fifths of U.S. households
in 1950 had a male breadwinner with a stay-at home wife, the majority of mothers today work
full-time (Stacey 2011). Today, there are twice as many households headed by single mothers
than two-parent households (Stacey 2011). At the same time, the percentage of low-income
families has increased over the last 40 years (Silva 2013). The number of jobs for people without
college degrees has decline, making it more difficult for many working-class families to maintain
the stable family models of the 1950s and 60s (Silva 2013). In 2007, over a quarter of low-
income families were making debt payments of at least 40 percent of their incomes, as opposed
to only 3.8 percent of highest-income families (Silva 2013).
Furthermore, the idealized notion of a “carefree childhood” fails to capture the reality of
many young people in contemporary U.S. society. To be sure, many children in the U.S always
worked. For example, in 1940, 25 percent of white boys under the age 14 were in labor force
and about 75 percent worked by the age 16. In the 1970s, 75 percent of 7
th
graders in New
Jersey reported that they work outside the home (Goldstein and Oldham 1979). Today, we still
4

see young people working in and outside of their home. Children in the U.S now shoulder 11
percent of total household work (McNeal 1999), including baby-sitting, mowing lawns, and
cleaning garages (Zelizer 2002). By 2000, 43 percent of the 14-year-old children were employed
in freelance jobs, and 24 percent were in employee-type jobs (Herman 2000). By the age 15, the
number of children working in employee-type jobs increases to 38 percent, while about the same
number of youths—40 percent—do freelance work (Herman 2000).
To further complicate this picture of changing family structures, immigrants and their
children now make up more than one fifth of the U.S. population (Foner and Dreby 2011). As
Foner (2009:1) states, “If today’s foreign-born and their children were to form a country, it
would have approximately twice the population of Canada and slightly more than that of France
or Italy.” The majority of children of immigrants—about 61 percent—have at least one parent
who has limited English proficiency (Katz 2014). This number has been gradually increasing
since 1999, when only 49 percent of children of immigrants had at least one parent with limited
English proficiency (Katz 2014). As a result, immigrant childhood is often shaped by what many
Americans view as “adult” responsibilities of advocating and representing for their parents in
public spaces.
Yet, amid the various statistics that challenge the normative concept of American
childhood, the moral dogma of the “American” family continues to mark “other” family lives as
strange, lacking, and dysfunctional. In fact, immigrant families have been a central site of the
marking of difference, as evidenced by everyday discourses and public rhetoric that blame
“Latino culture” for Latino children’s educational failures. Not coincidently, social
commentators, media figures, and politicians have focused heavily on the “problems” or
conflicts between assimilated children and their “traditional” parents, while neglecting the
5

complicated structural circumstances of their lives. For example, popular media alarmingly
proclaims, “Cultural clash with parents is the top reason immigrant kids become homeless”
(Toronto Star 2014). Or, in a particularly telling popular episode of Law and Order, a Princeton-
bound child of immigrants ends up killing his “embarrassing” working-class, non-English-
speaking father. Perhaps most evidently, the memoir of Amy Chua, the “tiger mom”—which
highlights how “Asian” parenting practices are inherently different from “Western” ways of
raising kids—has risen into the bestseller lists. These examples reflect the ways in which cultural
texts relegate social problems into the “private” sphere of family and culture while ripping these
“problems” out of the overall social contexts that frame, and in many ways work against,
immigrants’ attempts to navigate their family lives.
Working against these popular stories, I do not treat family lives as private matters,
occurring in domestic spaces of homes. Family life is profoundly significant in lives of second
generation Korean and Mexican children of immigrants whose stories I have the privilege to
share. Yet, I start with the assumption that intergenerational affairs are “social, historical, and
transnational affairs that expose multiple and interrelated forms of power relations” (Espiritu
2009: 47). That is, how children of immigrants understand their family lives and relationship
with parents is deeply connected with what they learn in other contexts and social fields about
their traditions and racial differences.
Studying Children of Immigrants
For the most part, scholars recognize that popular stories that focuses on immigrant “problems”
are serious incomplete. However, literature on immigrant family implicitly and unintentionally
validates the conventional wisdom. As Kim argues (2000:4), many scholars are “active
contributors to and borrowers from dominant racial discourses that circulate among the academy,
6

officialdom, and the mainstream media.” Thus, societal stereotype often influences research
design and theory development in the field of immigration. Most sociological studies on children
of immigrants examine whether children integrate into U.S. society. Current work on children of
immigrants broadly adopts two approaches to understand whether the assimilative paths of post-
1965 immigrants resemble the paths of earlier waves of European immigrants who gradually
became “Americans.” Challenging the assumption that there is a unidirectional assimilative
pathway toward an undifferentiated cultural mainstream, Portes and Zhou (1993) argue that
children of immigrants, depending on their race and class backgrounds, follow diverse and
segmented assimilative pathways. This divergent pattern of assimilation is called segmented
assimilation. According to this theory, when working-class immigrant parents lack the ability to
shield their children from the deleterious effects of the poor inner-city, children face downward
assimilation and develop an adversarial stance toward the dominant society similar to that of
American minorities (Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Portes and Zhou 1993). As a result, second
generation immigrants of color, especially Mexicans, have a harder time blending into the
mainstream (Lopez and Stanton-Salazar 2001; Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Waters and Jiménez
2005).
Segmented assimilation theorists have paid particular attention to intergenerational
patterns of assimilation that can affect parental authority. Portes and Rumbaut, for example,
argue that the result of a wide assimilative gap between immigrant parents and their children
results in role reversal or dissonant acculturation. Similarly, Min Zhou (2001) argues that the
second generation immigrants are “straddling the different worlds” of their traditional homeland
and their children’s new homeland. In describing the intergenerational relationship of Chinese
parents and their children, Zhou (2009: 21) writes that parents enforce “a modified version of
7

Confucian values emphasizing filial piety, education, hard, work, and disciplines,” but “the
different pace of acculturation between parents and children” create difficulties in transmitting
these values, leading to intergenerational conflicts. Given these dangers, the segmented
assimilation theorists urge immigrant parents to use their connection to ethnic communities and
instill their cultural values. These attempts, according to these scholars, can support the upward
mobility of their children and strengthen family ties while simultaneously shielding their children
from the dangers of the inner-city (Portes and Zhou 1993; Zhou and Bankston 1998).
Conversely, the second approach, what I call “neo-assimilation” theorists project more
optimistic assimilative outcomes. In their view, because overt racial discriminations and other
structural barriers to assimilation are now unlawful, nonwhite immigrants and their children can
benefit from the declining significance of racial boundaries (Alba 2009; Alba and Nee 2003;
Bean and Stevens 2003) and maintain a “second generational advantage” over native-born
minorities (Kasinitz et al. 2008). This pattern of “progress” among these new immigrants leads
neo-assimilation theorists to conclude that traditional assimilation remains pretty firm for many
new immigrants (Alba and Nee 2003; Waters and Jiménez 2005).
Like every good study, both the pessimistic and optimistic findings about the new second
generation have some truth. As segmented assimilation theorists have argued, structural
inequality certainly produces different assimilative pathways for the new second generation.
Also, as neo-assimilation theorists like Kasinitz and his colleges (2009) have claimed, we need to
move away from homogenizing all nonwhite groups, and compare their everyday experiences.
At the same time, there are at least four problems with taking an assimilation approach to
study children of immigrants. First, assimilation theory relies on the implicit assumption that
individuals either internalize or reject “American” norms and values and become either “good”
8

or “bad” Americans. As such, this research overlooks the possibility that children of immigrants,
as a less powerful group, have to enact or contest hegemonic beliefs pertaining to what it means
to be American at the interactional level, regardless of whether they individually internalize such
views. Second, since assimilation theorists often use measurements such as economic and
educational outcomes to predict assimilative pathways (Waters and Jiménez 2005), they
inevitably reinforce existing racial stereotypes about Asian “model minorities” and Mexican
“underclass” while ignoring class differences within racial groups. Based on these
measurements, for example, segmented assimilation theorists often find that new immigrants are
not succeeding equally; Asians are making it, whereas Mexicans are not. Third, while cultural
dimensions of parenting are unquestionably important, the assimilation theorists implicitly
obscure children’s agency by treating intergenerational relationships as unidirectional in which
parents impart resources and expectations that children passively accept or reject.
Finally, because many scholars regard children of immigrants as passive recipients of
American adult values, they inevitably depoliticize purposeful and creative actions undertaken
by children of immigrants in order to resist— rather than assimilate into— the unequal “host”
society. That is, when researchers measure immigrants’ “progress” toward assimilation, or view
resistance as a major obstacle to becoming “good” Americans, they implicitly and
unintentionally advance the idea that the successful or desirable destination of all immigrant
trajectories is to be like white middle-class adults (Brubaker 2004; Jung 2009). As Park (2005:1)
argues, we need to “extend our understanding of immigrants and immigration beyond the usual
premise of the immigrant narrative, which at its core is a story of upward mobility and individual
integration into U.S. society,” and question the preexisting unequal society that these children are
asked to integrate. How do we move beyond assimilation theory to expose inequalities of power,
9

status, and resources while simultaneously viewing children of immigrants as active agents that
construct cultural meanings?
Intersectionality, Racialized Nativism, and Social Citizenship:
Rethinking Immigrant Childhood
The framework known as the “intersectionality” is a good starting point that can help us extend
our understanding of immigrant lives beyond the scope of assimilation theory. Until the 1980s,
race, class, and gender comprised of separate fields of scholarly inquiry with scholars
emphasizing the boundaries between these areas of study. As a result, early scholarships
committed a shared error by overlooking the life experiences of marginalized group who are
situated at the intersection of multiple system of oppression. To remedy this shortcoming, many
feminists began to examine how race, class, and gender operated in relation, rather than parallel,
to each other (Collins 1990; Hooks 1984; Espiritu 1997; Glenn 2002; Zinn 1996; Crenshaw
1991). For these scholars, race, class, and gender were not attributes of persons, but rather,
concepts that were structured within interacting and interlocking systems of oppression (Collins
1990).
Building on this scholarship, scholars have begun to examine citizenship inequality and
its ties to other axes of inequality. The idea of citizenship is closely connected with whiteness in
the United States. From its inception citizenship rights in the United States were reserved for
white men who owned property. Yet by the middle of the nineteenth century, the category of
citizenship had shifted to include white, male wage earners, who claimed their citizenship rights
on the basis of productivity, progress, and freedom (Glenn 2002). Although including the
working-class seems, on the surface, like a step forward, this process involved casting
oppositional and negative qualities, such as dependency, un-freedom, and un-productivity onto
10

women and people of color (Glenn 2002), reflecting how “one’s inclusion is relational to
another’s exclusion” (Park 2011, page 6).
This history continues to affect today’s system of inequality, through which people living
at the intersections of race, gender, and class are denied full membership in American society.
Although non-whites can now exercise civil and political rights, institutional practices and public
discourses continue to position working-class people of color as outsiders in the realm of social
inclusion. In this sense, as Frazer and Gordon (1992:50) argue, the civil and political dimensions
of citizenship do not necessarily grant people civilized existence or social citizenship, defined as
“an entitlement of social provision, the guarantee of a decent standard of living.” Consequently,
people at the margin who allegedly fail to achieve the “American Dream” by pulling themselves
up by their own bootstraps are increasingly viewed as “undeserving” citizens who are getting
“something for nothing” and thus “violate standards of equal exchange in a neoliberal society”
(Frazer and Gordon 1992: 50).
Such hostility to the welfare state is often expressed through the popular discourses about
“inassimilable” immigrants who retain their “backward” culture (Chavez 2008; Espiritu 2003;
Ong 2003). Non-English speaking immigrants of color, especially Latinos, have been depicted as
a potential threat to the economic stability and security of “true” Americans (Espiritu 2003; Saito
2001). Perceived as distrustful and disloyal un-Americans, they often become targets of what
Sanchez (1997) dubs racialized nativism, antagonism and hostility aimed at racially identifiable
immigrants on the basis of their perceived foreignness. For example, in 1994, voters in
California overwhelmingly approved Proposition 187—an anti-immigrant referendum that
denied various public benefits, including education and healthcare, to undocumented immigrants
in California. In the months leading up to the election, the dominant metaphors in both pro-
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immigrant and anti-immigrant news reports and op-ed pieces constructed immigrants as
“animals,” who could be “lured, pitted, or baited” (Santa Ana 1999: 200). Numerous articles and
media reports adopted a similar overtone in 2010, when Governor Janice Brewer signed Arizona
Senate Bill (SB) 1070, which was supported by the majority of people in Arizona and in the
United States more broadly (Santa Ana 2012). This law included a contentious provision
requiring law enforcement personnel to verify the immigration status of any person they had
“reasonable suspicion” was an illegal immigrant. Although Prop 187 and the controversial
provision of SB 1070 were stricken down as unconstitutional by the courts, the depths of public
anxiety and racialized nativism were well reflected in the initial passage of these far-reaching
policies. By linking the issue of immigration with crime, the news reports and the anti-immigrant
policies successfully created and perpetuated perceptions of immigrants as a “threat,” a
“disease,” an “invasion,” and “flooding waves” that drain government resources (Santa Ana
1999, 2012).
The desire to exclude “undeserving” immigrants from citizenship has even greater
implications for immigrants who are linguistic minorities. In California, the anti-immigrant
sentiment surrounding Prop 187 quickly spilled over into the issue of minority language.
Eventually, Californians passed Proposition 227 in 1998, which ended bilingual education for
1.3 million English-learners. Although this was not the first time in American history that the
English-only movement was institutionalized, its reassertion took on a different meaning for
English-speaking Californians, who had come to feel increasingly threatened by the growing
number of new immigrants, especially Spanish speakers. With the large influx of immigrants,
critics argued that bilingualism would increase children’s allegiance to minority customs, thereby
causing the fragmentation of American society (Huntington 2004). The overall effect of these
12

measures was to create an atmosphere in which non-English-speaking immigrants became
readily identifiable symbols of disloyal outsiders or menaces to national unity.
Although this line of scholarship powerfully illustrate how new immigrants and their
children are denied full membership, few studies have examined how class and age intersect with
race to affect unequal social interactions. In comparison to working-class parents, middle-class
parents are better able to offer their children opportunities that increase their cultural and social
capital (Lareau 2003; Lew 2006). Yet, social class has rarely been the analytical frame of
research on immigrant families. Instead, social class often gets conflated with race in America
(Bettie 2003). For example, the moment that immigrants arrive in the United States, they are
implicated in the racial order and tagged with racial markers irrespective of their class status
(Kim 2000). Moreover, as childhood scholars have long argued, children are not just proto-
people or embodiments of the future who must be safeguarded from the danger of the adult
world (Pugh 2014). Rather, as knowing and reflective actors, they strategize within their
constraints to make profound differences in their surroundings (Musto 2014; Pugh 2014; Thorne
1994)—including their family lives (Park 2005; Song 1999; Estrada 2013; Estrata and
Hondagneu-Sotelo 2011).
This is especially true in immigrant childhoods, in which many bilingual children use
their bicultural fluency to navigate social inequality in adult-centric public spaces (Katz 2014;
Kwon 2014; Orellana 2009). Mostly focusing on Latino children, scholars have demonstrated
that children’s work as language brokers facilitates permanent family settlement by connecting
their immigrant families to a wide range of institutional information such as educational,
medical, employment, and housing resources (Bauer 2013; Katz 2014; Orellana 2009;
Valenzuela 1999; Valdés 2003; Vasquez et al. 1994), media information (Katz 2014), and
13

political knowledge (Terrquez and Kwon 2014). Rather than viewing their experience of
translating negatively, most bilingual children see their work as typical family responsibility
(Orellana et al. 2003; Valdés 2003).
At the same time, bilingual youth might negotiate power imbalances pertaining to age,
race, class, and immigration status when translating in various institutional contexts. Orellana
(2009: 66), for example, notes that brokering work is shaped by power relations since children of
immigrants often mediate “between people from different social classes, cultural backgrounds,
and racialized identities” and translate “racist, xenophobic, or otherwise deficit-laden views of
their families” in adult-centric public spaces. Therefore, much like African-Americans, who
engage in “style-shifting” (Baugh 1992; Lippi-Green 1997; Hill 1998) and nonwhite youth who
act “white” in some institutional contexts (Ogbu1987; Lew 2006), bilingual language brokers
also move between various behavioral codes and language to accomplish their normative
understanding of American behaviors. Because children’s parents, in the eyes of society, failed
the human capital assessment of citizenship for being “poor” and “failing” to learn English,
language brokers consciously manage stigma during unequal translation encounters. Meanwhile,
youth in this study, as I will show, use their simultaneously elevated and subordinated status of
bilingual children of immigrants to contest racialized nativism in English speaking spaces and
represent their immigrant parents. In short, by demonstrating how language brokers use their
social position to replicate and subvert broader power dynamics, this study brings a much-needed
focus on the effect of youths’ resistance to the study of immigration.
Research Design
In order to explore how class, race, and language intersect to shape family lives of Korean-and
Mexican-Americans, I rely on three sets of data: (1) interviews with Mexican-and Korean-
14

American bilingual youth from working-class households, who have served as language brokers
across various institutional settings on a regular basis, (2) participant observation data from a Los
Angeles police station, and (3) interviews with healthcare providers.
Interviews comprise a key data. Between 2009 and 2015, I conducted in-depth interviews
with 80 working-class “language brokers” who use their bilingual skills to serve as liaisons of
communication between their immigrant parents and English-speaking authorities such as
doctors, teachers, and police. I interviewed 33 Korean-Americans (22 girls, 15 boys) and 40
Mexican-Americans (25 girls and 18 boys), whose average age is 17 years. 40 percent of
respondents, were born in the United States, making them second generation. The remainder
came to the United States before the age of 12, making them 1.5 generation (Portes & Rumbaut,
2001). For the 1.5 generation youth in my study, those who immigrated to the United States
were, on average, 6 years old when they arrived. 12 children of immigrants were undocumented,
and 14 children with U.S. citizenship had at least one undocumented parent. 80 percent of
children who had at least one undocumented parent were Mexican-American. This mixed
immigrant status is common among Mexican immigrant families, which in turn increases the
likelihood that children with U.S. citizenship will represent and advocate for their parents in
public spheres (Fortuny et al. 2009).
In order to sample those who served as language brokers for their parents on a regular
basis, I visited various community-based organizations that serve low-income high school
students. To diversify my interview respondents, I also passed out flyers in front of various high
schools, colleges, churches, and parks across Los Angeles. The flyers stated that respondents
would receive a $20 gift card and restricted participation to those who used their bilingual skills
to help their monolingual parents at least twice a week. During the recruitment process, I shared
15

my own experiences of growing up in a working-class immigrant household, including
translation responsibilities that I shouldered for my Korean monolingual parents. Having a
similar upbringing helped bridge the gap between our unequal social locations, indicated by the
overwhelming number of youth— over 100 potential respondents— who contacted me to “share
their experiences.” Many potential respondents expressed a sense of enthusiasm and stated they
were “surprised” to find that a researcher wanted to write about their ordinary family lives.
Jonathan, a 17 year-old Mexican youth, for example, told me, “The public should know about
our experiences. Why we need to and want to help our parents. They are my parents, not just
dumb Mexicans who can’t speak English.” This desire to “be heard” and included as a social
member eventually became one of the central themes to my analysis.
Of those who expressed interest, potential participants were screened using a background
survey, which included questions about place of residence, age, the time at which they arrived to
the U.S., language proficiency of themselves and their immigrant parents, as well as their
family’s class background. Social class was determined based on eligibility for reduced-cost or
free lunch programs, the parents’ level of education and occupation, and whether parents were
home owners. I also selected “designated” language brokers who used their bilingual ability to
help their monolingual parents at least twice a week. Respondents’ self-reports show that,
parents’ language proficiency level— from 1 (being poor) to 10 (being excellent)—averaged 2.5,
with fathers having slightly higher English proficiency level overall. All interview respondents
identified themselves as bilingual, with their English proficiency averaging 9, while their
Spanish or Korean proficiency averaging 7.5. Moreover, the age in which they started language
brokering ranged from 6 to 12 years, with an average of 8 years.
16

Of Korean-American youth, 27 percent came from single-parent households— mostly
headed by mothers— compared to 38 percent of Mexican-American youth. Education level was
higher among Korean parents, reflecting the selective nature of the 1965 immigration law (Lew
2006). 30 percent of Korean immigrant mothers and 35 percent of Korean immigrant fathers
graduated from college, while only 8 percent of Mexican immigrant mothers and 9 percent of
Mexican immigrant fathers graduated from college. Meanwhile, 91 percent of Korean immigrant
mother and 95 percent of Korean immigrant fathers graduated from high school, while 29
percent Mexican mothers and 31 percent Mexican fathers graduated from high school. The
relatively higher level of education among Korean parents, however, was not reflected in their
occupations. An overwhelming 90 percent of parents in both groups worked in low-skill, low-
wage service occupations, and a vast majority of participants were eligible for free or reduced-
price lunches. None of the respondents’ parents owned a home.
While this study primarily relies on interviews with bilingual youths, I conducted five
months of participant observation at a police station in Southern California to further
contextualize language brokers’ experiences in different public settings. Because bilingual
youths often reported having negative interactions with police officers, I initially tried to
interview police officers to get their perspectives. However, after I recruited two officers through
a friend’s help and interviewed them, it became clear that these officers refused to share their
perspectives on issues related to race. For example, when I asked one officer, Charlie, if any
ethnic or social groups made his daily routine difficult, he responded, “You tricked me! I thought
you were going to ask me about kids who help their parents. This is a race question. I can’t
answer that.” Charlie then joked around with the other officer, John, who had arrived at the café
to participate in the interview. As Charlie was leaving the cafe, he told John, “Hey, be careful.
17

This girl is going to ask you if you’re racist.” Like Charlie, John told me, “That’s a sensitive
topic for us. You should know better.” As I was about to give up interviewing police officers,
however, I found an advertisement in a Korean newspaper looking for a bilingual volunteer to
help with interpretation. Excited about finding an opportunity to observe firsthand the
interactions that bilingual language brokers had with police officers, I visited the station and
received approval for conducting research, under the condition that I serve as a language broker
for Korean monolinguals. Because this police station was located in a region with a large number
of new immigrants, including Korean and Mexican immigrants, it presented a unique opportunity
to compare the ways in which bilingual youths from different racial backgrounds used similar or
different strategies to access resources. In addition to conducing participant observation, I spoke
with 15 nurses and 5 doctors who frequently interact with these children to compare their
perspectives with that of youth language brokers. In sum, I use a multi-method design to
triangulate data and better understand the complex processes by which language brokers
negotiate the structure of inequality and reshape family relations.
For the purposes of this project, I privilege youths’ own understandings and experiences
of their family lives and their language-brokering responsibilities. Before interviewing bilingual
youth, I spent some time getting to know them, talking to them about various topics, including
popular culture, applying to college, and living in Los Angeles. Because my interviewees did not
see me as a complete outsider, but a fellow child of immigrants who shared their struggles, I was
able to collect candid responses, interspersed with colloquialism and moments of intense
emotion. Interviews, which lasted between one to three hours, centered on four general topics:
(1) their parents’ immigration experiences, (2) their relationship with their parents, (3) their
understanding of family labor, including daily language brokering experiences, and (4) their
18

experience with school and peers, including their plans for the future. All interviews were tape-
recorded, and the names contained in this study are pseudonyms.
My findings are based on analyses of fully transcribed interviews that were initially
coded into broad topical categories and then recoded inductively based on emerging themes
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). An interview, like any social interaction, is a
scenario in which people enact cultural meanings. During interviews, people manage
impressions (Goffman 1959) and endeavor to project a “moral identity” that is consistent with
familial or social norms (Bauer 2013). In this process, interviewees also move between past and
present, while drawing from and reconstructing their memories (Bauer 2013). In other words,
although participants were relatively older children, they looked back at their childhoods and
articulated the continuous process of constructing reality and meanings based on their cumulated
language brokering experiences.
Outline of the Project
Translating Class, Race, and Immigrant Lives demonstrates how children language
brokers negotiate the power imbalance inherent in their translation interactions ranging from
everyday domesticity to racialized public encounters to life-threatening situations involving
healthcare access and police protection. In chapter 2, I uncover the social and cultural forces that
frame these Mexican- and Korean-American bilingual youths’ everyday experiences. More
specifically, I explain the social demographic and racial ordering of Los Angeles, and then
describe why children of immigrants shoulder language-brokering responsibilities for their
families in a seemingly multilingual and multicultural region of the United States. Chapter 3
demonstrates that their brokering work exposes these children to the harsh realities that working-
class immigrants face on a daily basis, including financial difficulties and legal problems.
19

Through my concept of “familial double bind,” I argue that these children— especially Korean-
Americans who have been touted as the homogenous middle class “model minorities”— are
pulled between the accompanying expectations of immigrant sacrifice and mobility. Focusing
on public spheres such as police station and hospitals, Chapter 4 shows how these youth
creatively use their “outsider-within” status to protect their parents from racialized nativism,
thereby reflecting how the margin can be site of repression and resistance. Such strategy of
“doing American” is particularly acute among Mexican-Americans who are depicted as “illegal
border-crossers.” In Chapter 5, I explore how these children language brokers, who blur the
boundaries of adulthood and childhood, negotiate their family relations through what I call
inclusion work, a particular form of emotion work that enables them to convert their marginality
into perceived assets. At the same time, I demonstrate how the idealized childhood and family,
which excludes the experiences of working-class, racialized children of immigrants, serve as
mechanism of control, shaping how children make sense of their family lives and imagine their
future. Finally, in conclusion, I propose practical steps to improve these language brokers’
childhood and their experience of navigating various institutions. Taken together, this study
shows that children of immigrants are by no means passive recipients of “American” adult
values; they navigate social constraints and make a profound difference in their family lives.
These processes, as I will show, entail complex negotiations, which in turn compel these children
of immigrants to translate race, class, and immigrant lives.

20

Chapter 2: Different Racialization and Relationality:
Mexican- and Korean-Americans in Los Angeles
When I was conducting this study, the famous “tiger mother” Amy Chua and her husband Jed
Rubenfeld wrote a book called The Triple Package in 2014. According to Chua and Rubenfeld,
the most successful “cultural” groups in the U.S. bear a “triple package” of character traits— a
superiority complex, insecurity, and impulse control. Perhaps because Chua was widely
criticized as a racist for essentializing Asian culture in her previous book, Battle Hymn of the
Tiger Mother, she and her coauthor were careful to start this book with “a word about cultural
generalization and stereotypes.” They claimed, “Throughout this book, we will never make a
statement about any group’s economic performance or predominant cultural attitudes unless it is
backed up by solid evidence, whether empirical, historical, or sociological.” (p. 14)
Despite their attempt to draw from concrete evidence, however, they used the East Asian
American group as the one group that bears the triple package. Citing the Pew Research Center
report, The Rise of Asian Americans, Chua and Rubenfeld argued (2014: 2), Asian Americans,
measured by “income, academic accomplishment, corporate leadership, professional attainment,
and other conventional metrics” are starkly more successful than others. Numerous scholars,
including sociologists, have criticized both their methodologies and their supposedly evidence-
based arguments. For example, sociologist Jennifer Lee, who was cited in the book multiple
times, wrote:
Who is more successful: a Mexican-American whose parents immigrated to the U.S.
with less than an elementary school education, and who now works as a dental
hygienist? Or a Chinese-American whose parents immigrated to the U.S. and earned
Ph.D. degrees, and who now works as a doctor? Amy Chua (AKA “Tiger Mom”)
21

and her husband Jed Rubenfeld, author of the new book The Triple Package, claim
it’s the latter. But what happens if you measure success not just by where people
end up—the cars in their garages, the degrees on their walls—but by taking into
account where they started? In a study of Chinese-, Vietnamese-, and Mexican-
Americans in Los Angeles whose parents immigrated here, UCLA sociologist Min
Zhou and I came to a conclusion that flies in the face of Chua and Rubenfeld, and
might even surprise the rest of us: Mexicans are L.A.’s most successful immigrant
group.
Lee’s optimistic portrait of the success of Mexican-Americans has a definite political twist.
Her comments clearly dispute the notion of a Mexican underclass while correcting the measures
of success that fail to consider the starting point of immigrants. Her remarks also challenge the
myth of Asian-Americans as the “model minority.” After all, Chua and Rubenfeld used culture
as a proxy for race to account for relative success and failure of different groups in adapting to
America, thus buttressing what Bonilla-Silva (2003) has dubbed the “color blind racism.” While
Lee’s type of language may be necessary in the wake of anti-immigration sentiments that target
“unassimilable” Mexicans, her focus on “successful adaptation,” in words of Lisa Park (2005:1),
“leaves little room for critical assessment for the social hierarchy itself” and does not question
the racialized foundation of the United States. That is, even if we conclude that Mexicans— who
start from the bottom of the social hierarchy and overcome numerous structural barriers—are
really “LA’s most successful immigrant group,” we risk endorsing the Horatio Alger-style, rags-
to-riches stories or “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” morality of individual responsibility
and upward mobility.
22

Like Jennifer Lee, many scholars have disputed the popular notions of the “Mexican
underclass” and “Asian model minorities.” Although stereotypes depict Mexicans as
“undeserving,” Mexican immigrants have low-crime rates, pay taxes, contribute to our labor
market, and gradually achieve middle-class status (Vallejo 2012). In contrast to the popular
perception that all Asian Americans are homogenous middle-class, moreover, Asian Americans
are an economically diverse population. South Asian refugees experience persistent poverty
(Ong and Umemoto 1994) and working-class Asian American high school dropouts endure
barriers when entering the labor force (Lew 2003). Furthermore, once researchers control for the
number of wage earners in a household, occupations, number of hours worked, and family assets,
Asian Americans no longer fare better than whites (Suzuki 1989; Ngo and Lee 2007). Although
it is critical to debunk these stereotypes, most studies tend to evaluate “success” of different
groups through conventional measures such as income, education, rates of social deviance and
public usages. As a result, underlying assumptions about American meritocracy remains
unchallenged.
Drawing inspiration from Espiritu (2003), this project aims to challenge the binary
framework of “immigrant success” versus “immigrant menace” or what Hancock (2011) calls
“Oppression Olympics.” To do so, I first outline the immigrant histories of Mexican and
Korean-Americans in the United States, showing how racial hierarchy in the United States is not
static. At the same time, I demonstrate that Asian Americans’ current position as “model
minorities” is contingent upon so-called less successful minority group, including Mexican
Americans (Pulido 2006). Second, I describe the current population of Mexican-and Korean-
Americans in the United States, paying particular attention to how government policies and
different racialization processes shape the divergent paths of immigrant experiences. Third, I
23

explain why Los Angeles provides an ideal empirical window into examining how class,
language, and racial hierarchies shape family relations. Finally, I end by describing my
methodology and interviewees. Taken together, focusing on immigrant history and comparing
the experiences of differently racialized groups can reveal how the boundaries of inclusion and
exclusion shift depending on the sociopolitical context in the U.S. to regulate the family lives of
marginalized groups.
From Essential Cheap Labor to Inassimilable Threats:
Mexican and Korean Immigration, 1900-1941
Although scores of books have been written about the immigration history of Korean-and
Mexican- Americans, scholars rarely compare the two groups. To some degree, all migrants,
including Korean and Mexican immigrants, were pulled by the opportunities in the U.S. while
simultaneously pushed by the socioeconomic conditions of their home countries. However, a
careful re-reading of Korean and Mexican history reveals that global racial order and economic
intervention of the U.S. in both Korea and Mexico produced massive displacement of workers
from these less powerful nations (Bonacich and Cheng 1984; Lowe 1996; Espirtu 2003). As
Espiritu (2003:25) argues, “the anti immigrant rhetoric makes invisible other important border
crossers: U.S. colonizers, the military, and corporations that invade and forcefully deplete the
economic and cultural resources of less-powerful countries.”
In the case of Korea, the ruling Japanese government entered into various unequal
international treaties through which Western agents, including American Protestant medical
missionaries, diplomats, and contractors, convinced Korean ruling elites to permit Korean
migration to Hawaii (Chan 1998). Recruiting Korean laborers addressed dual interests of
American capitalists. Not only did Koreans fulfill the increasing labor demands in Hawaiian
24

sugar plantations, but they were also used as an “available” racialized industrial army to counter
the labor protests of Japanese plantation workers, who at the time, constituted two-thirds of the
entire plantation work force (Takaki 1989). Studies show that Koreans did not express much
initial interest in leaving their homeland, despite the deteriorating socioeconomic conditions in
Korea and the promise of the higher wages. Consequently, the Hawaiian Sugar Plantation
Association and missionaries used various newspaper advertisements to boast about life in a
supposed “Christian land full of opportunities” (Chan 1998; Takaki 1989).
While approximately 7,000 Koreans arrived in Hawaii as a result of these labor
recruitment efforts (Patterson 1988), Japan abruptly halted migration after officially declaring
Korea as its protectorate in 1905. Korean migration was further restricted by subsequent U.S.
policies. The Immigration Act of 1917 restricted Asian migration by establishing a “barred
zone,” or the so-called Asia-Pacific triangle. More significantly, the Immigration Act of 1924
imposed national-origin quotas, which officially institutionalized prevailing anti-immigrant
sentiments and halted migration streams from Asia until WWII. The U.S. investment in
Whiteness extended to domestic policies in which federal, state, and local laws prevented Asians
who were already living in the U.S. from becoming naturalized citizens, owning land, and
intermarrying with Whites (Lipsitz 1998; Saito 1998).
This era of Asian exclusion coincided with the era of Enganche (hooked/indenture) for
Mexican migration. While the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had granted citizenship to about
50,000 Mexicans in 1848, the first significant wave of Mexican migration started more than 50
years later at the beginning of the 20
th
century (Messey et al. 2002). As the U.S. experienced an
abrupt halt of Asian immigration, the country opened four rail lines connecting interior Mexico
to the U.S. border in 1888, thus providing a way for Mexicans to travel from Mexico to the U.S.
25

With the arrival of the railroads and serious labor shortages in major sectors of the U.S.
economy, U.S. capitalists, who became desperate after the outbreak of World War I, started to
hire contractors who recruited Mexican workers by any means necessary.
Although intensive nativism in the 1920s led to the creation of U.S. border patrol for the
first time, the booming economy of the “Roaring Twenties,” and labor shortages during WWI
temporarily shielded Mexicans from the harsh discrimination practices that had targeted Asian
Americans. Various Americanization programs focused on Mexicans in hopes of fostering
patriotism to eliminate their “backward” culture (Sanchez 1993). Mexicans’ higher status as
“loyal” workers, however, was short-lived as they were relegated to “inassimilable threats”
during the Great Depression, reflecting how racial meanings could quickly be repackaged and re-
legitimized to serve U.S. national interests (Molina 2006). Repatriation programs replaced
previous assimilation programs, and Mexicans who remained in the U.S. suffered from similar
nativism and racist politics that had been experienced by their Asian counterparts. As a result, by
1940, the Mexican population in the U.S. decreased to only half of what it had been a decade
before (Gonzalez 1983).
U.S. Expansion and Imperialism: 1942-1964
Following the Great Depression, revitalization of the U.S. economy came with
Roosevelt’s New Deal and the U.S. entry into World War II. Labor shortages in agricultural
businesses led to wartime collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico, resulting in a binary treaty
for the temporary importation of Mexican farm workers, or braceros, starting in early 1942
(Massey, et al. 2002). Although initially designed as a temporary wartime resolution, the Bracero
Program was extended on an annual basis through the late 1940s due to the booming U.S. post-
war economy as well as the enactment of U.S. military conscription. The program reached its
26

peak in 1951 with the passage of Public Law 78, which granted the Bracero Program permanent
statutory recognition until 1964. By the end of its 22-year existence, the program had facilitated
the migration of approximately five million Mexicans (Samora 1971).
In contrast, U.S. policies toward Korea between World War II and the Cold War created
an entirely different backdrop for a second wave of Korean immigrants. While refraining from
military intervention to impose Western hemispheric solidarity within Latin America during
WWII (Dominguez and Castro 2009), the U.S. directly intervened in Korean affairs to realize its
global hegemony over Japan (and later, the Soviet Union and China). As a foundation to its
imperial domination and expansion, the U.S. “liberated” Korea from Japan in 1945 and
immediately secured several Japanese colonial institutions (Kim 2008). Subsequent conflict
between the Soviet Union and the U.S. brought war to the Korean peninsula from 1950 to 1953,
ultimately resulting in the division of the country. These interventions in Korea and in the
Korean War ultimately paved the way for a second wave of Koreans— primarily military brides,
war orphans, and children of mixed parentage— to migrate to the U.S. I mperialistic relations
between South Korea and the U.S. had the greatest effect on Korean women who were employed
on or near American military bases. As many as 28,000 South Korean women married American
men from 1950 to 1972 and about 50,000 Korean women— who were largely exposed to
American lifestyles and consumption patterns— immigrated to the U.S. under the War Bride Act
of 1945 that allowed wives of American soldiers to enter on a non-quota basis (Kim 2008).
Against the backdrop of post-war political and humanitarian efforts, about 5,000 children also
came to the U.S. as adoptees, with more girls adopted than boys (Choy 2007). In particular,
Korean military brides and adopted girls accounted for more than 70 percent of Korean
immigration between the 1950s and the 1960s (Choy 2007; Ablemmann and Lie 1995). More
27

importantly, U.S. involvement in the Korean War and its remaining visceral presence left
permanent marks on virtually all parts of South Korea and became a powerful impetus for South
Korea’s “brain drain” after 1965.
Korean Immigrants after 1965 Immigration
As history reminds us, no group encountered more ruthlessly restrictive immigration laws than
Asians before World War II. However, there were two main reasons that Asians became the
primary beneficiaries of the 1965 immigration law, which abolished national-origin quotas. First,
after the U.S. emerged as a global superpower following World War II, the nation could no
longer retain racist immigration laws that clearly contradicted its image as a leader of democracy
and the “free world” (Dudziak 2000; Saito 2009). Thus the U.S. adopted an immigration policy
of “welcoming” immigrants from all nations, regardless of their race and nationality (Ong and
Liu, 2000). Second, as the 1960s marked the era of the civil rights movement, it became
increasingly difficult for the U.S. to uphold the race-based immigration policies that restricted
Asians. Equality for all meant equality for immigrants who sought better lives in the U.S.
It was during the civil rights movement that Asian Americans were suddenly lifted into
the position of the “model minority” that other minorities should emulate. While the nation was
groping for solutions to its long history of racial inequality, popular media and some scholarly
articles began singling out Asian Americans as a quiet minority who overcame discrimination
through self-discipline, determination, hard work, and strong family values. In this context, not
only did Asian Americans’ achievements serve as proof of the quintessential American values of
meritocracy, equal opportunity, and democracy, but their alleged success silenced the claims of
racial inequality that were being made by African Americans, who were considered
“demanding” and “lazy” in comparison (Chun 1980; Osagima, 1988). While Chinese and
28

Japanese Americans were the first group to be labeled as the model minority in the 1960’s (see
Peterson 1966), Koreans gradually emerged as the new successful group, with a 1992 Los
Angeles uprising playing a pivotal role in portraying Korean immigrants as the hardworking
minorities who lost their “American dreams” to Black (and to some extent Latino) looters (Kim
2000). Today, politicians continually reference the model-minority myth to criticize the
“American” families’ “decline” and to endorse moralistic rhetoric about the traditional family
values and structure (Pyke 2000). At the same time, the political discourse and everyday talk
still use this myth to discipline other minorities, including Mexican-Americans, who do not
display similar success (Cheng and Yang, 2000; Osajima, 2000).
In this context, it is critical to note that many contemporary Asian Americans, including
Korean Americans, were already “successful” before migrating to the United States. With the
passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the United States fundamentally shifted
its policy from a race-based approach to a class-based method for selecting migrants (Park and
Park 2005). Given a shortage of medical and science professionals during the Space Race and the
Cold War, the U.S. once again turned to Asia to specifically recruit “professionals” and persons
with “exceptional ability in the sciences or arts” (Ong and Paul 2000). In the case of South
Koreans, the changing political and economic condition of their homeland also facilitated
migration of highly educated professionals. After the Korean War, South Korea’s export-
oriented economy developed rapidly from being one of the poorest countries in the world in
1950 to the status of an “upper-middle income level” country by the late 1980s (Park 1995).
Despite this rapid economic growth, the number of white-collar jobs did not match the number of
highly educated Koreans, which pushed the South Korean government to arrange various
programs to send professionals abroad (Light and Bonacich 1988). Subsequently, many middle-
29

class professionals who yearned for modernity, upward mobility, and political stability migrated
from South Korea to the U.S (Abelmann and Lie 1995).
Because this wave of Korean immigrants was selected along the lines of education and
class, the resulting experiences fundamentally differed from that of Mexican immigrants as well
as earlier Korean immigrants. To be clear, many of these professional Korean immigrants
encountered difficulties in translating their high level of education into favorable occupations
due to language barriers, racial discrimination, and unfamiliarity with U.S. customs (Min 1988).
Nevertheless, many Korean immigrants took advantage of their middle-class background and
ethnic resources and opened small businesses, eventually becoming the immigrant ethnic groups
with the highest rate of self-employment in the U.S. (Lee 2002).
Whereas middle-class professionals comprised the majority of Korean immigrants
between the late 1960s and early 1970s, Korean American communities have become more
diversified in terms of social class and occupational status over time for two reasons. First, the
U.S. government tightened entry requirements for professionals in 1976. Second, many Korean
immigrants, who migrated after 1965, obtained U.S. citizenship, subsequently inviting their
family members. With an increased number of Korean immigrants who obtained citizenship, the
proportion of family-sponsored immigration from Korea increased from 66 percent in 1976 to 92
percent in 1981 (Light and Bonacich, 1988). As a result of the tightened entry requirements of
professionals and the increasing number of family sponsored migrants, the overall education
level of Korean immigrants decreased; while over 44 percent of Korean Americans had
bachelor’s degree or higher between 1965 and 1969, this number decreased to 25.7 percent
between 1975 and 1980 (Lew 2006).
30

Although Korean emigration steadily increased after the passage of the 1965 immigration
law, peaking at 35,776 in 1986, the number of Koreans immigrants decreased to 12,840 in 1999,
with the rapid growth of South Korean economy. Yet, after South Korea suffered a major
financial crisis in the late 1990s—which resulted in a high unemployment rate, currency
devaluation, and failures of major conglomerates—the number of Korean immigrants started to
increase again, averaging 25,000 per year in the 2000s (Min 2013). Furthermore, as the U.S.
government accepted South Korea as a visa waiver country in 2008— allowing Korean citizens
to travel to the United States for tourism or business for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa—
the number of visitors increased from 700,000 in 1995 to 900,000 in 2009. According to Min
(2013), many of these visitors who came to the U.S. to see their family members and for
sightseeing overstayed, thus becoming undocumented migrants. Today, one in four Korean
immigrants is undocumented (Migration Police Institute 2007). While the direct impact of the
economic crisis and the increasing number of undocumented immigrants is difficult to measure,
many Korean immigrants who had lost their jobs during the financial crisis migrated to the
United States in hopes of finding jobs in Korean owned small businesses (Min 2013).
This does not, however, mean that the majority of Korean immigrants are working-class.
In 1990, the increasing need for highly skilled workers led to another major revision of the U.S.
immigration laws, easing restrictions for highly educated Koreans to emigrate. The proportion of
Korean occupational immigrants steadily increased since the 1990 revision, reaching 60 percent
in 2005 (Min 2013). Hence, whereas most Korean immigrants who arrived in the late 1980s and
‘90s consisted largely of family members of naturalized citizens, employment-sponsored middle-
class immigrants now outnumber family-sponsored immigrants.

31

Mexican Immigrants after 1965
America has long been depicted as a country of immigrants, full of “limitless possibilities.” Yet
Mexican immigration in recent years has been repeatedly framed as a crisis. The political
discourse, the media, and everyday talk have almost exclusively depicted Mexicans as
undesirable, “bad” immigrants who threaten to affect the stability of the nation. If the model
minority myth often serves as the basis to explain Asians’ success, the culture of poverty
argument (Lewis 1968) is used to explain Mexican’s failure. Here, the “different” parental
practices of Asians and Mexicans become focal points for comparison. The popular story goes
something like this. Asian children are academically successful because their parents’ homeland
culture places higher value on education. In contrast, Mexican children fail in school because
their parents’ homeland culture does not value education. Opponents of affirmative action, for
example, argued that “Asian Americans ‘success’ is being punished, while African American or
Latino ‘failure’ is rewarded” (Lee 1998:8).
However, popular stories too often locate the “problem” on Mexican individuals and
completely overlook the political and economic violence that shape their everyday lives.
In comparison to Korean middle class immigrants who migrated with the help of policies that
privileged the rich over the poor, Mexicans immigrants after 1965 were subjected to more
restrictive measures, resulting in a starkly different immigrant experience. Soon after the Bracero
Program ended, there were increased calls to restrict immigration from Mexico. This led the U.S.
to place an overall quota of 120,000 visas per year for individuals migrating from nations in the
Western Hemisphere (Park and Park 2005). Although countries in the Western Hemisphere had
been excluded in the national origins quotas, the 1965 law, as well as subsequent amendments,
significantly reduced the number of residence visas from Latin America. Despite this effort, self-
32

perpetuating social capital, set in motion by the Bracero Program, worked together with the built-
in structural demand for low-wage workers to stimulate both legal and undocumented migration
flows from Mexico to the U.S. (Massey, et al. 2002; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994; Piore 1979).
In response, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) sought to regulate
undocumented migration by “militarizing” the U.S. border and sanctioning employers who
knowingly hired undocumented workers. To balance its restrictive measures, IRCA also granted
amnesty to 2.3 million undocumented Mexican workers who later brought their families to the
U.S. However, the policy that originally intended to restrict the migration flow from Mexico
failed as the growing black labor market in the U.S. and the demise of the Mexican economy
continuously pulled workers from Mexico (Massey et al. 2002). More importantly, neoliberal
programs like Maquiladora and NAFTA facilitated Mexican migration, especially among women
who initially worked for American companies along the border (see Sassen 1983 and Fernadez-
Kelly 1983). As a result, Mexican male dominated communities were transformed by a large
number of women and children immigrants, increasing the overall number of Mexicans settled in
the United States (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1997).
At the start of the 21
st
century, efforts to crack down on illegal immigration exclusively
targeted the Mexican population. In 1996, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act approved the deportation of noncitizens from ports of entry without judicial
hearing. Additionally, although Congress initially passed the Patriot Act to remove criminals
and political threats to the U.S after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Mexican
immigrant population has been disproportionately affected, accounting for the highest number of
recent deportations. Today, U.S. imperialism, labor supply and demand, and a well-established
network system in the U.S. continually attract migrants looking for jobs. Although the Great
33

Recession and ever-tougher border enforcement have contributed to the declining number of
Mexican immigrants in recent years, such changes have increased the number of Mexican
immigrants who settle permanently and bring their families into the U.S. instead of assuming the
future risk of apprehension at the border upon returning to Mexico (Massey and Pren 2012).
Furthermore, in response to border control and massive deportation of noncitizens, those who
were eligible for citizenship quickly adopted a strategy of “defensive naturalization” to avoid
deportation (Massey and Pren 2012).
Still, because of the limitations of legal entry and few pathways to citizenship, the
majority of today’s Mexican immigrants—about 11.6 million— are undocumented, with about 3
million entering as children (Wasem 2011). In addition, as a result of immigration policies that
favored low-wage migrants, Mexican-origin populations have lower educational attainment
compared to the overall immigrant population. Only 7 percent of Mexican Americans have a
bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 28 percent of whites, while about two-thirds of the
Mexican adult population as a whole did not graduate from high school (Vallejo 2012). Mexican
Americans are heavily concentrated in low-wage labor, such as low-skilled service occupations,
construction, and maintenance occupations. Nonetheless, when data is disaggregated by
generation, studies indicate that Mexican Americans significantly improve in educational
attainment; college graduation rates double from 4.9 percent in the first generation to 9.5 in the
second generation, while attaining “some college” triples from 7.1 percent to 26.9 percent
(Vallejo 2012). Meanwhile, 65 percent of first-generation Mexican immigrants do not graduate
from high school, while 36 percent of second-generation Mexican immigrants do not graduate
from high school (Vallejo 2012).

34

Language Brokers in Los Angeles
This project focuses on the lives of Mexican and Korean language brokers in Los Angeles,
California. Despite being a mecca for U.S. born Protestant white Easterners and mid-
westerners— who wanted to enjoy economic prosperity under palm trees and Sunshine— during
the late 19
th
century to early 20
th
century, Los Angeles has always been an ethnically diverse city
(Villa and Sanchez 2005). Not only did Los Angeles house a large number of Mexicans,
Chinese, and Japanese Americans in the 20
th
century, but a significant number of African
Americans also found their way to Los Angeles. This is not to suggest that Los Angeles was a
safe haven for people of color. Between the 19
th
century and 20
th
century, Native Americans
were sold into slavery and lynched, and Chinese Americans encountered zoning regulations for
being major interlopers to “white paradise” (Molina 2006). While both Mexican-and African-
Americans were less likely to encounter the harsh discriminatory practices that had targeted
other minorities, the decline of Native Americans and exclusion of Asian Americans transformed
racial hierarchies, relegating Mexican-and African-Americans to the bottom over time. Los
Angeles history, therefore, powerfully reveals how racial hierarchy is unstable and fluid.
As with many other regions along the pacific coast, the population of Los Angeles grew
significantly after the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act. Today, Los Angeles hosts more
immigrants than any other city in the United States, with 3.5 million residents—more than one in
three—born outside of the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2010). Among all racial
groups, Asians, followed by Latinos, are most likely to be born outside of the United States.
While Latinos constitute the largest group with 48 percent of the population, Asians, consisting
15 percent of the population, are the fastest growing group, growing at a rate of 20 percent from
2000 to 2010 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2010). As a result of the growing immigrant
35

population, the percentage of homes that speak a language other than English represents the
majority in Los Angeles; about 2.5 million residents reported that they were limited English
proficient (LEP), with 63 percent of Koreans and 52 percent of Mexicans experiencing
difficulties in communicating in English (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2010). As the demographics
of Los Angeles, changed, moreover there was an outflow of whites who lived in central Los
Angeles to more racially homogeneous areas on the regions’ fringe (Waldinger 1996).
Consequently, whites are no longer the majority in Los Angeles County, comprising only 28
percent of the population.
In this context, one might assume that immigrants, especially Spanish speakers, can
easily access resources—in hospitals, police stations, schools, and other social service
agencies— while speaking their native language. Indeed, under federal law, such as Title VI of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California’s Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Service Act, LEP
individuals are entitled to language assistance when accessing social services. Despite Los
Angeles’ image as multilingual cosmopolitan city, however, according to the 2011 California
Bilingual Service Act audit, most state and local agencies failed to comply with the
responsibilities of ensuring access to their residents’ language needs. This is alarming since the
2011 audit shows that there was very little improvement since the 1999 audit, suggesting that
implementation of the bilingual services laws was virtually non-existence.
For critics, these statistics reflects the inability, or refusal, of immigrants to learn English.
However, many immigrants do not work in the so-called mainstream where the English language
is critical for them to carry out their daily duties. For example, the majority of recently arrived
Central American and Latino immigrants (particularly from Mexico, El Salvador, and
Guatemala) work in service-intensive jobs in Los Angeles where “limited English proficiency” is
36

sufficient to perform the manual works required in low-paying jobs. Similarly, while some Asian
immigrants are more likely to live among English speaking Whites in wealthier suburbs, many
first generation Asian immigrants, coming from non-English speaking countries, work in ethnic
enclaves, thus mostly interaction with co-ethnic individuals who speak their native languages
(Lew 2006). This is especially true for many working-class Korean Americans who often work
in co-ethnic businesses, as low-wage service workers.
More importantly, the issue of language access is not an individual problem; it is an
institutional problem. According to 2011 audit, moreover, there are several reasons why LEP
persons face challenges in exercising their rights to translators. First, many immigrants, as well
as local and state employees, do not know about such laws. Second, linguistic diversity makes it
extremely difficult for the state and local agencies to implement relevant laws. In Los Angeles,
Spanish is the second most spoken language, followed by Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, Armenian,
and Vietnamese. Correspondingly, it is not surprising that a lack of translation resources was
cited as the number one reason for the failure of state and local agencies in complying with their
legal responsibilities. Although lack of language assistance has a greater impact on low-income
immigrant families in general, Mexican and Korean immigrants may encounter different
challenges. For example, though more Mexican immigrants live in low-income communities,
they are more likely to receive language assistance since the Spanish is by far the most spoken
foreign language in Los Angeles. Conversely, Korean immigrants, who may be more widely
connected to resources through Korean community-based organizations (see for example, Light
and Bonacich, 1988), may still encounter challenges in the public sphere due to a lack of
bilingual assistance.
37

It is in these contexts that many children of immigrants, who acquire the English
language as they grow up in the United States, emerge as language brokers for their immigrant
parents. Language brokering may be more common among recently arrived immigrant families,
but children and adolescents often continue to serve as language brokers to generate higher
certainty in understanding since children of immigrants have a better command of English than
their first generation immigrant parents (Valdes 2003). That is, children’s language brokering
work helps immigrants to exercise basic individual rights and access vital government resources.
And arguably, in this process, these children provide the language assistance that is otherwise not
offered by the state.
Although children of immigrants, regardless of their ethnic background, may serve as
language brokers for their family, I have selected to compare the family lives of working-class
Korean- and Mexican-American language brokers for three reasons. First, the interactions that
children have with mainstream authorities can vary depending on who is performing the
language brokering work in what institutional/local contexts. As demonstrated earlier, given that
Mexican-and Korean-Americans currently endure seemingly different racialization processes
which depict the former as “bad” foreigners and the latter as “successful” foreigners, they might
encounter different challenges during translation encounters, thus illuminating how non-English
immigrants are racialized in ways that may prevents or facilitates their access to institutional
resources. Second, although scholars rarely focus on class as the central analytical frame of
immigrant research, even less attention has been devoted to comparing differently racialized
working-class immigrants. Studies examining Asian Americans largely center on middle-class or
professional migrants, and the majority of research on Latinos primarily examines the lives of
the working-class migrants. Such unevenly distributed scholarly attention has ignored the
38

important question of how racial meanings connected to Mexican-and Korean Americans
developed in related yet distinct ways for many years. Moving beyond such an approach, I am
interested in analyzing the shared lives of working-class Mexican and Korean American young
people, examining how popular notions of “success” differently constrains and enables these two
groups. I now take the readers inside the everyday lives of these interviewees, arguing that
ideological assumptions about “good” immigrants create a difficult double-bind for working-
class immigrant children of color, who must represent their parents in English-speaking spaces.

39

Chapter 3: Familial Double Bind: The Work of Children in Immigrant Families
Jungmi, a 17-year-old Korean American youth, came to Los Angeles when she was 8 years old.
Although Jungmi dreamt of living in a big house, like the one that she saw in Hollywood movies,
in reality, the first five years of her life in Los Angeles was “a nightmare.” Her family of five
moved into her grandmother’s one-bedroom apartment in a “ghetto neighborhood.” In school,
her peers made fun of her for not understanding English. Jungmi, however, “picked up English
really fast, because [she] was still really young.” As she was learning English, she often found
herself translating and interpreting for her Korean monolingual parents. She feels that translating
for her parents is just “natural” and an everyday experience because her parents can’t speak
English. She checks voice messages and sorts mails. She writes checks for her parents. When I
asked her to list all the places that she translates for her parents, she said, “Oh, my gosh, are you
serious? Like everywhere you can think of. Let’s see . . .” She then started listing locations: the
DMV, the doctor’s office, school, the police station, the immigration office, the bank, the social
security office, and Macy’s. Jungmi sometimes talks on the phone with the landlord as well as
agents from car insurance, credit card, and cable companies. Jungmi told me that her friends call
her “grandma” because she is emotionally mature for her age. At home, she was a “third
parent.” Not only did Jungmi help her sisters with their homework, but she also sometimes
accompanied her mother to parent-teacher conferences as a translator.
By calling herself, “grandma” and “third parent,” Jungmi acknowledged that her life was
different from “other” kids who get to enjoy their carefree life.” She always worried about her
parents. Her mother has back pain from standing up all day serving food at a Korean restaurant,
and her father works in a “dangerous” neighborhood as a security guard. Knowing how hard her
parents work, she was deeply committed to excelling in school to compensate their parents’
40

difficult lives in the U.S. After taking a deep breath, she said, “I have to do it, because it needs to
get done. My parents need my help with the translation. My sisters look up to me. And, I have to
do my homework and study for SAT because I want to go to college.” As with many children of
immigrants I talked to, Jungmi felt that her school work is just as important as her family work
since her parents do not want her children to follow their footsteps of having a low-wage job.
Although Jungmi presented herself as an in-control and content child of immigrants, towards the
end of interview, she became overcome with emotion. Wiping her tears, she said, “Sometimes, I
just cry like this, because I feel so overwhelmed. But, I make sure that my parents are not
around.”
Five blocks away from where Jungmi lives, I met Eduardo, a 14-year-old Mexican
American boy. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Eduardo was very familiar with his
neighborhood. When we talked on the phone, he said, “I know a good spot for us to talk” and
suggested that we meet at a local park that would be quiet on a weekday. Upon meeting
Eduardo, he explained in great detail about the changes that took place in his neighborhood.
“People knocked down everything here to build nice buildings,” he declared as he was pointing
to luxurious condos and new markets near the park. As a result, “everything became super
expensive.” The son of garment workers, he was the one of the poorest children out of my
interviewees. Although his parents worked long hours, they sometimes could not pay for
electricity or food. When I ask him where he translates for his parents, he responded:
You [translate] everywhere and anywhere. Sometimes, it’s at home, when
we are watching television or when we get mails. Sometimes, when we go
to store to buy something, like last week, I went to home depot with my
41

mom to buy this cleaning product and I had to translate like how it works. It
can be simple thing like ordering food at McDonalds, too.
As with Jungmi and many other language brokers I spoke with, he knew that his parents
“sacrificed so much for him.” An aspiring engineer who wants to make “a lot of money
for his family,” Eduardo attended an afterschool program that catered to low-income
students and was “doing really well in school.” Yet, his “family responsibilities” seemed
overwhelming and exceptionally difficult. During his interview, Eduardo talked about
translating for his aunt whose son was shot by a neighborhood gang. After his cousin was
sent to the hospital, Eduardo spoke with the police officer who asked his aunt, through
Eduardo, numerous questions to see if his cousin was also a gang member. In the
emergency room, he spoke for his aunt who was panicking and crying. A few weeks prior,
he also translated an eviction letter for his parents. Not only was his family getting
evicted, but every tenant in his apartment received a notice to relocate due to a planned
demolition of the apartment building. Because he was known as the competent bilingual
and smart kid in the building, some tenants knocked on his door to ask questions about the
notice. On a number of occasions, Eduardo told me that he did not have time to complete
his homework because in addition to translating for his parents, he accompanied his father
to the garment factor to sew clothes.
Although I expected children like Eduardo to share their sense of frustration and
disappointment, Eduardo made it clear that he did not want me to express sympathy
toward his family or harshly judge his parents for putting him in situations to engage in
rather challenging translation activities. I asked him how he felt about his brokering
activity:
42

I feel good. My parents have to make money. My dad has to work 24/7 for my
family and for me and my brother to get education. My mom comes home late
too, she is always tire. Sometime, I get really tired too, but I feel like I have to
help them out and never complain. I mean if I do this for them, they can rest.
They need to rest.
After we finished the interview, he told me that he would show me his neighborhood.
As I was learning about his neighborhood, he told me, “You know what is so funny?
People don’t believe that I am only 14 years old. Look at me. I have all these
wrinkles.” After pausing for a few minutes, he continued, “Sometimes, I wonder what
it’s like to live in those luxurious condos [pointing at one of the new building]. No,
actually, I just want to take a break for few days from everything, like work, family, and
school and sleep in that luxurious condo.” I asked him if he wants to change anything
about his family:
In a perfect world, I imagine my whole family to be happy, which means that we
live with no problems emotionally and financially. My parents would speak
English, have high paying jobs, such as doctors, and we would live in a rich
neighborhood.
Intergenerational Conflicts versus Solidarity
Scholars studying immigrant families generally agree that migration changes family structure.
Yet, existing studies tend to adopt a limited framework for studying immigrant families, focusing
on how the assimilation gap between U.S.-raised children and immigrant parents becomes a
source of intergenerational conflict (Foner and Kasinitz 2007; Jones and Trickett 2005; Portes
and Rumbaut 2001; Puig 2002; Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco 2001; Tseng and Fuligni, 2000;
43

Waters 1999; Zephir 2001; Zhou 2001). According to the dominant model of intergenerational
relationships, immigration often provokes intergenerational conflicts as children of immigrants,
in comparison to their parents, are far more likely to gain English fluency and experience greater
acculturative opportunities through school, peers, and media. Extensive research suggests that
such an “acculturative gap” can create familial role-reversal and undermine immigrant parents’
authority (Foner and Kasinitz 2007; Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-
Orozco, 2001), especially in low-income immigrant families where parents are not readily
exposed to “American norms” (Zephir 2001; Zhou 2001).
While much of the current scholarship on the “new” immigrant families focuses on the
causes of intergenerational conflict, some scholars have argued that feelings of closeness and
affection may more accurately represent immigrant family relations. Familism has been a
recurring theme in studies of immigrant families, especially Asian American and Latino families.
Scholars, for example, have referenced Confucian cultural ideals— such as collectivism, filial
piety, generational hierarchies, and family devotion— to explain why Asian immigrants maintain
the solidarities within their families (Gates 1987; Hardway and Fuligni 2006; Oxfeld 1994;
Wong 1985). Similar arguments emphasizing familismo— ideals such as family cohesiveness,
conformity, and the obligation to care for one another— have been made in the case of Latino
families who are said to prioritize family interests over individual desires in order to foster
harmony (Harwood et al. 2000; Miranda, Estrada, and Firpo-Jimenez 2000; Sy and Brittian
2008).
Challenging the cultural explanation, other scholars have suggested that structural
constraints might better explain why immigrant families strategically cooperate in working
toward their collective goals. Up against economic, racial, and social marginalization, immigrant
44

families display resilience and cultivate strategy to facilitate economic survival and adaptation
(Glenn 1983; Kibria 1993; Massey, Alarcon, Duran, and Gonzalez 1987; Thornton-Dill 1988).
Similarly, rather than experiencing resentment, Smith (2006) and Louie (2012) have argued that
children of immigrants try to strike an “immigrant bargain” by excelling in school and careers in
order to repay their parents for their sacrifices. Witnessing first generation immigrant parents’
struggles in the new country, therefore, children tend to display a reciprocal sense of duty,
gratitude, and loyalty to their parents, with some children believing that they should help their
parents escape their menial occupations via social mobility (Louie 2012; Smith 2009; Suárez-
Orozco, Suárez-Orozco and Todorova 2008; Swartz 2009).
Focusing on whether migration produces either conflict or solidarity, however, implicitly
advances a binary framework for understanding familial relations, one that obscures coexisting
and competing ideologies that may shape intergenerational relationships between immigrant
parents and their children. Existing research also often overlooks how children, as active social
agents, contribute to their family’s settlement processes. In this chapter, I analyze how multiple
structural constraints and competing societal ideologies shape the ways language brokers from
working-class households understand their family relations. As the opening stories from Jungmi
and Eduardo demonstrate, language brokers did not report that their parents’ “traditional”
parenting practices produce intergenerational conflict. Instead, they repeatedly said that it is
only natural for children of immigrants to contribute their labor, including their bilingual skills,
for the sake of their family’s cohesion, and at times, survival. Yet, many youth like Jungmi and
Eduardo also struggled with the coexisting expectation that children of immigrants build on first
generation immigrants’ achievements and successfully attain entry into mainstream American
society. The findings, therefore, suggest that their intergenerational relations are characterized by
45

a familial double bind, which I define as a condition in which marginalized children of
immigrants are pulled between the accompanying and equally powerful expectations of
immigrant sacrifice and immigrant mobility.
Daily Lives of Language Brokers: “I am Their Mouth and Ears”
Although popular press has spotlighted translating work in medical and legal setting, warning the
public and health care professional about the danger and stress those (innocent) children endure,
in reality, many of these translation activities seemed mundane at first. Almost all the parents in
this study did not work in the so-called mainstream where the English language is critical for
them to carry out their daily duties at work. The vast majority of children’s parents worked in
service-intensive jobs in Los Angeles where “limited English proficiency” was sufficient to
perform the manual works required in low-paying jobs. Though racially-segregated
neighborhood or ethnic enclave often insulated immigrant parents from the English-speaking
mainstream, English language became important when these parents receive mails or had to
access English resources. Consequently, children stepped in as language brokers and actively
assumed the roles of interpreting and translating for their parents. In the following narratives,
children of immigrants describe their work as ordinary, “simple” or everyday responsibilities.
I don’t know where to start. Let’s see. Like I said, we live in Koreatown so
my parents only talk to Korean people. They don’t have to speak English.
But, I have to read all the mails. Like any bill, car, electricity, credit card
bills, advertisements, letters from my sister’s school like everything. I
usually do that at home, but sometimes, my dad, he’s a contractor, so he
deals with some people like who speak English. Not all the time, but
46

sometimes. I have to go with him to his job and translate everything so that
they could understand each other.
Jennifer, Korean female, 15 years old
I always go with my parents as a translator when they go to run their
errands. For example, when my mom goes to the mall to buy some clothes, I
always go with her to help her ask the salesperson about what she wants and
about the prices. I renew my dad’s driver’s license for him. If they want to
talk to the apartment manager, they ask me to go with them. I am the one
who has to go order the food when we eat out in a restaurant. It’s simple
things like that. Oh, also it’s something small such as back to school night
when I have to explain the assignments I did in class. I used to depend on
my parents when I was little, when we were in Mexico, but when we came
to the United States, things changed. But, it’s not a big deal for me. They
just need my help.
Catalina, Mexican male, 17 years old
I do everything at home. I check the mailbox after school, sort them out and
kind of skim through them to see if I need to take care of them right away.
Sometimes, I call the bank, apartment manager, write checks out, and call
credit card companies. [My mom] comes home around ten at night… and
she can’t really understand what they say. So it’s easier for me to do it.
Mina, Korean female, 17years old

47

When I asked Mina why she assumes this work for her parents, she had a puzzled look on
her face as if she could not understand why I asked such question. Raising her eyebrow, she
continued: “I am good at this (translating) and my parents trust me. I am the only communication
channel they have. They can’t speak English so it’s natural for me to speak for them. Yeah, I am
like their mouth and ears. It’s my responsibility. ” Likewise, Jesus, a 16-year old Mexican-
American youth who was born in Los Angeles said: “They are immigrants and immigrant
families are supposed to help each other. Yeah, it’s my family. They are my mom and dad. It can
be very frustrating when they can’t communicate their needs. It’s almost like having no voice,
but I can speak for [my parents] cuz I know English and Spanish.” Another interviewee, Junn, a
15-year old Korean youth, called me out when I asked him if he gets paid do the translation
work. Looking at me like I am crazy for asking such question, he responded: “Are you kidding
me? Of course I don’t get paid. It’s my parents! They trust me and I want to help them out as
much as I can.” Likewise, there was little variation in children’s responses. For the most part,
brokering work was only natural for these children as they recognized that mastering a new
language was difficult for their parents who arrived to the United States as adults. They also
knew that their parents lacked voice in mainstream America due to their limited English
proficiency. Empathizing with their parents’ sense of frustration and disempowerment, these
children assumed their language brokering “responsibilities.”
The process of becoming their parents’ “mouth and ears” was also gradual. For example,
when I asked language brokers if they remembered the very first time they stepped in as a
translator, most of them provided responses similar to that of Minho:

48

No, I don’t remember the very first time cuz it’s kind of second nature to
me. When someone rings the door-bell and say, hello, I go out and start
speaking to the person and translate what the guy said. I am pretty sure I
started helping out when I started picking up English. But, honestly, it’s just
everyday thing that I don’t recall the very first time.
Gabriella also could not remember the very first time that she had to translate for her parents.
Yet, Gabriella emphasized that her mom “always wanted [her] to learn Spanish,” and as she got a
bit older, she recognized that her bilingual skills allowed her to help her parents:
My mom always wanted me to learn Spanish so I can communicate with
her. She would get me to read and write versus from the bible and
summarize, write it in my own words in Spanish. It was annoying back
then, because bible itself is hard to understand and I was child. I remember
thinking it was so useless because I didn’t need it for anything else. But,
when I was 7 or 8, I started helping my mom with translation. I don’t really
remember the very first time I had to help my parents translate, but I
remember when we had to bring my little sister to the doctor for basic check
up. We had to register her as new patient and I remember telling the
receptionist we are here to write her name in the computer the receptionist
smiled and said oh yes you are here to register as new patient. I think in the
beginning it was hard and I got really nervous. I could not really find the
proper word in Spanish. And, my mom said that I have to improve my
Spanish. I am really good at it now, because I did it for so many years. It’s
49

has become a second nature to me. I could probably do it better than some
professionals. Now, I appreciate that I had these experiences.
Joanna, one of the few youth who in fact remembered her first translation experience, provided
similar response as Gabriella and Minho: “I think I was about seven years or eight years old.
There was no water when we got up in the morning so my mom asked me to find the mail from
the water company and call them. I think that was the first time, but I am sure I ordered food at
the restaurant even before that… but, now, she doesn’t ask me to translate. I just do it.”
Joanna’s narrative clearly illustrates that her parents did not simply give her these family
“responsibilities.” Rather, as she accumulated experiences of translating, she voluntarily spoke
for her parent. Consequently, brokering work became an ordinary, second nature, or even
mundane part of many children’s daily lives.
In line with previous studies, (Song 1999; Valenzuela 1999; Orellana 2009), older
siblings generally tended to engage in translation activities more than their younger siblings.
Depending on a variety of circumstances, however, younger siblings took up these roles. First,
when they were close in age, their language proficiency or their willingness to help out also
influenced who became the designated translator. For example, some younger siblings told me
that their brothers or sisters were more likely to get “annoyed,” “show attitudes,” or “become
impatient” with their parents than themselves. In few cases, however, younger siblings were
more available or possessed greater bilingual fluency in comparison to their older siblings. As
Jina, the youngest sibling of three, explained, “My oldest sister came here later than me so she
had a harder time learning English. Plus, she only hangs out with Korean friends. Her English is
still not as good as me. My brother works all the time to help my parents, so he’s not home. So I
usually do it.”
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Family dynamic and other circumstances also changed over time, compelling “partial
translators” to become “active translators.” For example, Justine who had two older brothers said
that he always did “little translation like translating at the supermarket or restaurant” when he
was younger since his older brothers “translated more serious stuff like talking to the apartment
manager.” Yet, after his father got a job as a contractor, Justine became busy. By this time, his
oldest brother had married and his second brother was in college. In addition, because he was
fifteen at the time, his potential productivity, measured by bilingual skills and being relatively
old enough to handle so-called adult-matters, increased. Justine explained: “Well, my brothers
were not there anymore to help my dad. So, I went to see my dad’s clients when they needed
estimates, call them to make an appointment, and sometimes translated complaints.” Similarly,
Chulsu, whose parents opened up a taekwondo studio after he turned fourteen explained,
I was their translator before, but I definitely do more translation now that
they opened the taekwondo hagwon (after-school program). I need to go
there after-school and pick up the phone, talk to the potential students’
parents. I also help them put together English ads. They tell me what to put
on the flyers [in Korean] and I just translate that in English. What else, oh,
sometimes I go into the classrooms and translate, like punch, elbow strike,
and back fist… it’s a lot of work, but it can be pretty fun, too.
In contrast to previous findings (Foner and Kasinitz 2007; Jones and Trickett 2005; Portes and
Rumbaut 2001; Puig 2002; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco, 2001; Tseong and Fuligni, 2000;
Waters 1999; Zephier 2001; Zhou 2001), uneven assimilation speed of immigrant parents and
children, as well as children’s language brokering work, did not necessarily produce
intergenerational conflict. Instead of drawing attention to parental homeland culture as the source
51

of conflict, youth in this study generally believed that translating for their parents helped them to
forge a strong bond with their parents while creating trust. For example, Mina told me “It’s a
way to become closer to my parents.” Likewise, Josephine, an 18-year old Mexican-American
youth whose parents worked in a warehouse until late at night said: “Translating is a way to
connect with your parents. Both my parents and I are busy. But, I get to know more about my
parents.” Having “busy”working-class immigrant parents who faced language barriers, most
youth in this study embraced the popular “immigrants sacrifice narrative”: over and over again,
many youth told me that it is natural for immigrant families to come together and help each
other.
Learning Family Secrets:
When Translating Languages Turns into Translating Class
At first glance, it might appear that class background does not shape the “mundane” brokering
experience. Without a doubt, ordering pizza, translating a television show, accompanying their
parents to local stores or the DMV, answering phone calls, or helping their parents put together a
flyer do not necessarily expose the class-background issue. However, there were a number of
occasions in which some mundane brokering experiences became classed. For example, when I
asked what they learned from translating for their parents, the vast majority of children said that
they learned about financial struggles. Sandy, a high school junior whose single mother worked
in a Korean super market since they moved to Los Angeles in 1999, explained how she was
shocked to discover that her mother consistently accrued credit card late fees and only paid
minimum payments:
My mom asked me why she had to pay this charge, like she was not
sure why there was extra fee and that’s why I called the credit card
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company for her and they explained to me that when she pays late, there
is this extra fee. And so, I can see in the charge that it’s like late fees,
after late fees, and my mom wouldn’t pay like the whole bill and pay
minimum because she didn’t have the money to pay. So, I realized like,
oh, my family is really struggling financially.
Similarly, Erika, a 14-year old Mexican youth, recalled finding out that her mother could not pay
the insurance bill until she gets next paycheck:
So, like when a mail comes home and I have to send a document in, and
if I don’t do it, our car insurance could get cut off. So, at the end, I
asked my mom and reminded her that due date is coming up, but she
said that she needs to wait until she gets her paycheck. I kind of felt bad
for keep asking her.
Jaime was a 16-year-old Korean-American who immigrated to the United States when she was
nine. After moving to the United States, Jamie’s mother worked as a cashier while her father
moved between different co-ethnic businesses ranging from salesperson at a wholesale apparel
business, valet, security guard, to stocker at a local Korean supermarket. At the time of
interview, Jaime’s mother, who got increasingly frustrated with their family’s financial situation,
had filed for divorce and left the house with Jaime’s older brother who often helped their parents
with translation work. When her Korean monolingual father, who did not graduate from high
school, was laid off from a Korean supermarket, Jaime realized that her father did not have
anyone but Jaime to help him call the unemployment agency. At one point she recalled her
uncomfortable feeling as the unemployment agent, who initially insisted on speaking with her
father directly, relied on Jaime to ask her father about his financial situation.
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I think my dad was feeling really uncomfortable, but I had to find out why he got laid off,
how much money he has in his bank account, and if he’s looking for a job right now.
What else, there were so many questions and it was really complicated, and they wanted
to know everything about my dad, literally.
Born in the United States, John was a high school senior at an inner-city Los Angeles school and
his mother worked late hours at a Korean beauty salon. Interviewed in front of his high school,
John politely prefaced his conversation by stating that he only had one hour as he needed to work
at a nearby Korean video store. John’s mother did not like the fact that he worked after school
because he was often tired and would fall asleep at his desk trying to finish his homework.
However, it was not until John saw the ‘three-day notice to pay the rent or quit’ on his door that
he felt compelled to find another job to bring in money. Sharing that translation work often
revealed his mom’s financial struggles, John shared: I asked my mom if we have to move out,
but my mom said not to worry about it. But then, when I went to the apartment manager’s office
with my mom, I had to translate for her. Why she missed the due date and all that. My mom was
literally begging for the extension and I wanted to cry.
According to many participants, their parents initially attempted to hide their financial
troubles. But inevitably, participants were exposed to these family “secrets” when relied upon
for translation support. Another participant, Amy, age 15, who lived with her family in a small
apartment in Koreatown, compared her experience of growing up in Korea with her experience
of living in the United States. She shared that her parents were no longer able to keep their
financial problems as “secrets”:
When we were in Korea, I didn’t really know that my parents were having a
hard time, financially. So, when they said we are going to America, I was
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happy, because I didn’t know what was going on. But, here we have to find
out about the difficulties that they are going through. In Korea, they could
easily hide these secrets from me because they don’t need translation of
what the letters say. The problem could have been hidden. But here, I was
the first person to know it, because if they got a parking ticket and didn’t
pay, I am the one who tell them, if their checks bounce back or if they get
that final notice, I have to tell them about it.
As with Amy, many participants admitted that they often opened mail because it was easier for
them to go through letters, sort, read, and “take care” of them on their parents’ behalf. However,
as Amy’s response suggests, “taking care” of these bills also required children from low-income
families to “see” the financial problems and remind their parents about their family’s financial
struggles. Because these classed language brokering experiences elicited a sense of empathy and
protection, they made strategic efforts to maintain their parents’ sense of dignity. For example,
Jaime, who had to call the unemployment agency for her father, said that she tried to maintain
her father’s sense of dignity and pride. “My dad worked hard all his life and he took pride in
being the breadwinner. He is very prideful person, so I am sure relying on me and showing me
that he is [financially] struggling can be humiliating for him.” Carlos, a 17-year-old Mexican-
American youth, recalled hiding his feelings of shock whenever he translated documents for his
parents, including his mother’s bank and credit card statement. Although Carlos reported that “it
was pretty scary” to learn that his mother “was always paying minimum wage and late fees,” he
never asked his mom to “pay off her debts or even asked her why she was so behind.” Believing
that parents are supposed to “know more” than their children about the “adult-world,” but
knowing that their parent can’t fully navigate structural constraints due to linguistic, economic,
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and/or legal barriers, they made careful efforts to protect their parents from feeling
uncomfortable or embarrassed. As a result of assessing their parents’ situations and managing
their emotions accordingly, most youth felt that they did not openly challenge parental authority
and successfully engaged in what Kibria (1993) calls “patchwork,” a process in which family
members contribute their share of labor for the household economy.
Shouldering a Labor of Love during Crisis Situation: Chain Translation
Though a vast majority of language brokers framed their work as labor of love and agreed that
they should use their bilingual ability to help their parents, this stated beliefs in the notion of
immigrant sacrifice did not necessarily mean that they forged intergenerational solidarity or that
“patchwork” was seamlessly achieved. Embracing the narrative of “immigrant sacrifice,” often
became increasingly difficult when they had to “drop everything” and navigate the unequal
social structure for their parents. In these situations, they had difficulties balancing coexisting
ideas of immigrant sacrifice and immigrant mobility as they had to abandon their own school
work to help their parents.
Emergency visits to hospitals were the most common urgent situations these children
remembered. For example, Adriana, a 18-year old Mexican youth, reported that her father
“breathe[d] dusts” at construction sites on a regular basis and coughed all the time, but refused to
consult a doctor, fearing the expensive cost of such a visit. Yet, when her father suffered from
“burning chest pain” one day, Adrianna had to accompany her Spanish-speaking father to an
emergency room in order to help translate on his behalf. She vividly recalled the “unbelievably
long wait” in a crowded emergency room and complained that she could not complete her
homework after spending an entire evening at the hospital. And this frustrating episode was only
the beginning. When her father asked Adrianna to translate the medical bill a few days later, she
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was shocked again to discover the expensive costs. Recalling the time when she stepped in as a
language broker to settle her father’s medical bill, she told me:
Adrianna: I could not believe how much it costs for that one visit! My dad
was really frustrated too so I called for my dad and explained to one of the
staff [at the hospital] that my dad really couldn’t pay for the cost cuz he’s
poor.
HK: So, what happened after that?
Adrianna: Well, so then the staff said that she was going to mail me some
forms, something to do with the low-income family and so I helped him fill
out that forms. He ended up paying a lot less, but it took so much time away
from me.
Another 18-year-old Korean-American youth, Minjoo reported that her family
responsibility sometimes took a lot of energy away from her education. Like Yessica and Kyung-
ah, Minjoo spent a significant time accompanying her father, who had a lung surgery, to a local
hospital, but often felt trapped between “uncaring and busy” institutional agents and her “frustrated
and distressed” monolingual father. Complaining that navigating bureaucratic hurdles within
powerful institutions took away a lot of time and has left her feeling underappreciated, drained,
and frustrated, she shared:
I understand that my dad is frustrated because he can’t communicate with the
doctors, so I really want to be there for him. Like, that’s what we need to do….
But, my parents always say that I should do well in school so I don’t follow their
footsteps. Like, I am their pride and joy. But, how can I do well in school if I
have to be their big helper?
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Similarly, an 18-year-old Mexican-American youth, Edmon, who was keenly aware of the
“uneducated Mexican” stereotype said:
Many Americans judge those of Hispanic origin and think that their children will
not amount to anything, but it was expected of me to do well in school because
my mother had a dream that I become an important person. I wanted to make her
happy and proud. I saw what was happening to Mexicans like me and I knew she
was right.
However, when Edmon’s mother was injured from her cleaning job, his “translation
responsibility tripled,” thus making him feels “really tired and frustrated.” Joseph, a 16-
year-old Korean-American youth, recalled “skipping his last period” to talk on the phone
with his mother, who had gotten into a car accident. Joseph believed that it was his
responsibilities to “step in as her advocate”:
My mom told me that she was really scared when that guy hit her car and started
speaking English to her. She wanted to explain to him that it was not her fault, but
she couldn’t, but I was there for her during and after the accident…It’s my mom. I
love her and I want to take care of her.
While Joseph was “committed to helping [his] mom,” he admitted that this particular
incident was stressful:
It was a pain in the ass… I had to call the police, and after that, I had to call the
insurance company and then the body shop. It was non-stop. I was getting
frustrated because I had to be in my class instead of calling these places. My
teacher would never understand why I had to do this for my mom.
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Joseph and a good number of youth like him were called upon to translate in these situations,
because they were the best translator in the family with accumulated experience of navigating
U.S. institutions. Yet, as demonstrated in these cases, brokering during crisis situations required
them to privilege their parental needs before their own. Not only one emergency brokering
activity in crisis situation set off a domino effect of increasing their responsibilities, in some
cases, these activities disrupted their school lives. Like Joseph, several children of immigrants
reported that they missed test, homework, or school when these unexpected situations occurred.
Minding Legal Matters: “Saving parents”
Jungmi was a high school senior who shared her translating experiences in front of a youth
center catering to low-income students. When asked to discuss about her most recent translation
experience, she paused, leaned on her elbow like a pensive adult, and shared that she recently
filed a police report for her dad because someone had illegally used his credit card and Social
Security information. “I wanted to do everything I could do, because my dad is so innocent,” she
declared in a rising voice. “I eventually talked with the supervisor of the credit card company to
resolve the problem.” As part of her translation labor, Jungmi assembled evidence to
demonstrate that her father was working at the time when the fraudulent transactions occurred,
but she felt frustrated that no one took her Korean monolingual dad and his child seriously when
they reported the credit card fraud. Yet, despite her worried statements, Jungmi also exhibited a
sense of deep conviction, charisma, and calmness in her voice when she said, “I don’t take no as
an answer. I am known as the fighter in the family, because I have to get what I want especially
when I call the credit card companies. It’s money issues.” Because she was a child in the eyes
of adult authorities, Jungmi felt constrained in advocating for her father. Nevertheless, Jungmi
had to be the “fighter” in the family during these crisis situations, not because she chose to, but
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because she was the only one who possessed the bilingual skills and accumulated expertise to
fight for her “innocent” father and navigate inequality. Towards the end of the interview,
however, Junmi admitted that this experience was “really difficult and overwhelming.”
Well I have to admit that it was really difficult and overwhelming. I would go to school,
come home, do homework. I have a lot of homework. But, whenever emergency
situations occur, it’s just really hard. I don’t have any older siblings or cousins to turn to
because I was the only one in the family who knew how to fight. My brother was just
much younger. Honestly, it was a lot of pressure. I was still able to manage it because I
got good at organizing my time, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
When asked what was difficult about translating for his parents, David, another 18-year old
Korean language broker recalled drafting a letter to his apartment manager:
David: I talked to the manager many times. Every time, it rains, we have to get one
of those dishes like those big containers, because of the water leaks. But, he kept
saying okay, okay, and the problem happens again next time it rains. So, I wrote the
letter and said that we are not going to pay the rent if they don’t fix this problem
soon.
HY: Did you parents ask you to write the letter that way?
David: No, they asked me to be polite because they were afraid that we are going to
get kicked out. But, I googled like crazy and learned that by law, tenants can refuse
to pay rent if we gave [the landlord] enough time to fix the problem. I told my
parents about this and promised that I will try to sound professional in the letter, not
rude.
HY: How did you feel about doing this for your family?
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David: I did it because it had to get done, like we can’t be in the apartment where
water leaks all the time. In some way, it feels nice to solve this kind of problems for
my parents, because they are my parents. They can’ speak English. My mom feels
bad that she’s taking my time…I am torn between wanting to help all the time and
wanting to focus on my own work. It’s hard.
Ana, a 19-year old Mexican American language broker, said that she helped her parents report an
“attorney” who “took their money and ran away.” Like Jungmi and David, Ana reported a
mixed feeling about “getting involved with the complicated legal matter” as it took too much
energy and time away from her:
Ana: I got really furious when I found out that this quote and quote attorney just
disappeared on us after taking our money away. It turned out that he was not even an
attorney and promised my parents that they would get them the paper, like immigration
status. I filed the report with the police. It was crazy, because my parents don’t make that
much money and gave this guy a lot of money.
HY: I am sorry to hear that. Were you able to resolve the problem?
Ana: No, the police just filed the report, but nothing happened. My parents were
devastated and I felt so bad. Like police weren’t even that helpful, but we spent a lot of
time there and guess what? I missed school and my parents couldn’t even write the note
for my teacher. It was really frustrating.
Though children were less likely to express their sense of discomfort when they
advocated for their parents who fell victims of crimes, youth brokers felt more conflicted when
they were put in a situations to fight for their parents who broke the law. They felt obligated to
help, but also uncomfortable being exposed to mistakes that their parents would have rather
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hidden from their children. For example, Jane, who immigrated to Koreatown at the age of four,
talked about a situation where she “saved” her father from getting arrested for a DUI. One night,
when Jane was trying to sleep, she heard a loud police siren and looked out the window to see
her father sitting on the sidewalk, next to a police car, with his head down. The officers
suspected that Jane’s father had been driving under the influence and followed him from the
freeway when he didn’t stop. Jane recalled that her father looked terrified as he told her in
Korean that he only drank one shot of soju, a distilled alcoholic beverage native to Korea. Her
father ultimately passed the field sobriety test, but only with the help of Jane who simultaneously
felt uncomfortable and empathetic for her dad who had unintentionally involved his daughter in
his “embarrassing” moment.
A few youth also recounted situations in which they inevitably intervened as advocates
for their parents who had gotten into fights with co-workers or friends. For example, Enrique, an
18 year-old Mexican youth, reported that his father used violence against his English-speaking
co-worker: “My dad is not really violent, but I think that co-worker gave him a hard time for
awhile, and because he can’t really [verbally] fight back, he just beat the shit out of him.” After
the fight, Enrique recalled the police knocking on his family’s front door and arresting his father
for assault and battery. Enrique, the oldest in the family, reported that this incident was “really
draining.” His mother panicked and asked Enrique to call the victim to “apologize on behalf of
his dad.” Enrique also had to search for a good public defender who eventually “helped [his dad]
get out of jail.”
Diana, who was born in Los Angeles, felt a similar sense of confusion and ambiguity
when she helped to file a police report after her mom had been physically abused by her dad.
Recalling the shattering sound of glass and her mother’s screams, Diana shared that she initially
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tried to turn a blind eye to the situation by rereading aloud the same paragraphs of her textbook
over and over again. But, when two officers knocked on her door, she knew that she had to get
involved as a translator. What Diana hated most was regurgitating what had happened to these
intimidating authorities:
I think my neighbor called the cop because they were so loud. So, when the
scary cops came, my mom would not come out of the room and when police
went into her room, she covered her face with her hands because her face
was bruised up. She had to explain, but she couldn’t and I had to translate
for her. How did I feel about it? I hated it. I really didn’t like it… they
took my dad to jail. So, the next morning, I started calling a bunch of
lawyers…
Most participants said that their mothers talked more openly about incidents of family
conflicts while their fathers kept quiet. For example, after Jane helped her father remedy his
DUI incident, she described how “small” her father seemed to her that night. Jane’s father went
into his room and did not come out. Likewise, Enrique and Diana said that their father never
talked about these incidents with them. On the one hand, participants attributed these “private”
characteristics of their fathers as ethnic or male characteristics. On the other hand, they expressed
concerns about how their fathers, authoritarian household figures, gradually lost control and
isolated themselves from their families. This situation could be even more jarring for fathers—
linguistic and racial minorities— who may already feel powerless due to their limited access to
economic opportunities in mainstream America (Min 2001).
Both Diana, Enrique, Jane were put in a difficult situation because their parents broke the
law. Nonetheless, these situations must be understood in light of structural forces that prevent
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immigrant parents from shielding their children from such troubles. Lack of financial resources,
limited understanding of American government bureaucracy and insufficient bilingual services
available to working-class immigrants unite to make immigrant parents “powerless” in the eyes
of their children. Previous studies have shown that ethnic organizations, including churches, play
a pivotal role in providing social support for immigrant families (Min 1992; Lew 2006). Yet,
while some parents of participants relied on co-ethnic peers in ethnic organizations, most
parents’ busy schedules prevented them from fostering social capital within their communities.
Moreover, participants reported that their parents refused to discuss problems with their peers
because these problems revealing their class positions were viewed as private family matters. In
effect, working-class immigrant parents relied on their children for translation support even as
they knew that these situations are distressing and take time away from their children’s school
work.
Familial Double Bind and Racial Meanings
The vast majority of children of immigrants believe that translation was the “labor of
love.” The driving forces, as many interviewees told me, were the idea of immigrant sacrifice,
the norm of reciprocity, and a sense of obligation. Since their “hardworking” parents could not
speak English, these youth felt compelled to take care of their parents in these crisis situations,
especially in times of sickness. However, because availability for individuals to access resources
is stratified by race and social class, bilingual youth of color from working-class families could
not fully compensate for the lack of institutional support. As demonstrated, in some cases,
children even miss school to accompany their parents.
In these times of crises, the idea of immigrant sacrifice competed with an equally powerful
expectation of immigrant mobility. With the exception of a small number of youth whose parents
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failed to consistently uphold the immigrant sacrifice by engaging in illegitimate behaviors such as
gambling, drug abuse, domestic violence, or excessive drinking, most youth, regardless of their
ethnic background, said that their parents viewed children’s educational achievement as an
“investment” that can bring about “honor” or family’s potential social mobility (Louie, 2009;
Smith, 2009; Park, 2005). However, as the narratives of my interviewees indicate, working-class
immigrant parents in this study often had a hard time achieving this “family agenda” of privileging
their children’s upward mobility in times of crises as they faced multiple structural constraints,
including limited access to institutional resources. While most youth strongly believed that their
parents wanted to support their children’s educational and career goals, they also reported that
their parents, who had limited education or did not attend school in the U.S., often could not fully
understand how much school work their children’s lives actually entailed. Consequently, many
working-class language brokers, who struggled to balance family and school demands during
family crises, experienced the familial double bind, pulled between the overlapping and at times
irreconcilable expectations of immigrant sacrifice and immigrant mobility.
To be clear, both Korean-and Mexican-American Americans experienced the familial
double bind; however, racial meanings and the extent to which these youth interacted with the
middle-class peers influenced their understanding of and desire for family life. In general, Korean-
American youth had a harder time upholding the immigrant sacrifice narrative during crisis
situations as they often relied on the stereotypical image of Asian parents who seemingly devote
all their energy and time to their children’s future. Many Korean American youth echoed what 17-
year-old Jinjoo said: “You know, when I think of a perfect family, the men are the head of the
household, and the wives stay home and care for the children, while the children are off to school
getting nothing but straight A’s.” Being seen as a model minority student who overcame academic
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adversity with the help of her devoted ‘tiger mother’ was a frustrating experience for Jinju.
Admitting that she never contested her peers and teachers who assumed that her exceptional
academic performance reflected her parents’ unconditional support, Jinju shared that
she sometimes resented her parents for their “dependency,” especially when she was interrupted
to help with translation work while in the middle of completing her school assignments:
They bother me especially when I am doing my homework. I get really distracted when
they come in and ask me to translate for them. I am like “dude, can’t you see my homework
leave me alone.” … Sometimes I think can’t my parents be more like other Korean parents
who always care about their children’s education? That’s when I am showing them that I
am so annoyed, I will be like why, and give them an attitude. … Ahhhh, oh my gosh, so
that’s really frustrating.
Similarly, Kate described her parents as “Korean” because they required obedient behaviors from
their children: “You know Korean parents. They want you to drop everything and follow their
orders.” However, as with Jinju, the stereotypical representation of Asian parents as the devoted
‘model minority’ who fully supported educational success simultaneously compelled Kate to
question her father’s parenting practices and view him as “less Korean” for his dependency:
I think Korean parents are stricter compared to American parents, but Korean parents also
care more about their children’s grades. I am not saying my parents don’t care about my
education, but they are not as involved, because their issues are so urgent. If they don’t
take care of some bills right away, there is a consequence, like paying late fees. I know that
they are busy but my parents are not typical Korean.
Likewise, in discussing their role as translators, participants constantly drew on available rhetoric
associated with what it meant to be Korean parents. This pattern was also noticeable among those
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who tried to rescue their parents from such stereotypes. For example, Yujin consistently said that
her parents were different from other Korean parents because they were more “laid-back and
relaxed about her schooling.” For Yujin, describing her parents as more laid-back and modern was
her attempt to distinguish her parents from “traditional” Korean parents. When asked if she was
content with her relationship with her parents, she paused and said:
I kind of want them to remain the way they are, because they are really Americanized and
not uptight and let the kids choose their career path, but sometimes, I wish my parents knew
more about my school stuff.
Yujin’s struggle to carve out a positive parental image against the ethnic grain and her unappealing
depiction of “Koreanness” demonstrates the powerful role of racialization in shaping children’s
evaluations of their family lives. The long-standing ideological representation of the United States
as a classless society often compels Americans to use other categorical “differences” such as race
and gender to articulate the experiences of class (Bettie, 2003). For children of Korean immigrants
who cannot escape invisible norms associated with whiteness, racial meanings associated with the
model minority stereotype– depicting all Asian-Americans as successful minorities who
eventually obtain social mobility through their cultural values of hard work – are a convenient way
to make sense of and normalize ‘different’ experiences. Yet, working-class Korean-American
language brokers, whose family lives are rendered invisible in mainstream society, face the
complicated task of negotiating tensions between the existing dichotomous meanings of Asian and
American since these meanings work to exclude their family lives. Participants recognized that
there were other children whose family lives seemed carefree in relation to their own. They also
fleetingly communicated the sense of unfairness embedded in their class position. However, these
‘actively felt and lived’ class inequalities, or what Raymond Williams (1977: 132) identified as a
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“structure of feeling,” was not recognized and articulated in terms of class injustice. Instead,
participants in this study were unable to locate their experiences in relation to other working-class
children of immigrants who actually shared common experiences of language brokering work.
Furthermore, in comparison to Mexican-American youth, Korean-American youth who
live in low-income ethnic-enclaves often had more chances to interact with middle-class co-ethnic
peers who came from suburbs when attending churches and other after school programs. In some
cases, working-class youth were bused to a high school in a relatively affluent neighborhood where
they met middle-class Whites and Korean-Americans. An18-year old Korean-American, Susan,
who frequently interacted with middle-class peers at her school and church, evaluated her family
lives in relation to her middle-class co-ethnic peers:
When we were praying for each other at church, Amy said she wanted us to pray for her
parents. Apparently, they were struggling [financially] because they [had] purchased a
second home in this rich neighborhood. I was thinking she doesn’t know what it means to
struggle!
Because the difference in social background is accentuated during these classed interactions, and
their family obligations distinguish their childhoods from that of their middle-class peers, Korean-
American working-class youth had hard time balancing inconsistent expectations of immigrant
sacrifice and mobility.
In contrast to Korean-Americans, Mexican-American youth were less likely to evaluate
their family life in relation to middle-class peers. Living in a segregated neighborhood and going
to school where the vast majority of Latino peers came from low-income families, they often
referred to “Mexican” people in general as hardworking but struggling to make ends meet. Mario,
a 16-year-old Mexican-American, for instance, constantly switched between his parents and
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“Mexican people” as a whole: “Mexican people are hardworking people and my parents have to
sustain their family. If they learn English and go to school, that would be a plus, but they can’t
because they have so many jobs and responsibilities.” As reflected in Mario’s statement, their
understanding of language brokering work was not just a defense of their own families, but a
defense of an entire way of life for many “Mexican” immigrant families in the U.S. Nonetheless,
similar to working-class Korean Americans, many Mexican-Americans, especially those who
started going to college, had hard time negotiating the twin expectation of immigrant sacrifice and
immigrant mobility when their “family work” competed with their schoolwork. Julia, a 19-year-
old Mexican-American freshman, who was first in her family to go to college, told me that she
started comparing her family life with the lives of her friends that seemed more carefree: “My
college friends were talking about going to Europe for summer vacation, and I’ve realized that my
life is very different from theirs.” Consequently, when Julia “bombed” her midterm after
accompanying her father to the hospital, she felt that there was no way to meet familial demands
while trying to be a good student at the same time. Julia said, “Gosh, I am a student. My schoolwork
is just as important. I know I have to help my parents. I mean I want to be there for them, but it’s
unfair that other people don’t have to do this.” While some youth in this study believed that their
friends enjoyed a privileged path to adulthood, where youth focus on self-exploration, such
“possibility” was sometimes difficult to attain for working-class youth who carried the burden of
social, racial, and economic marginality (Silva, 2013). At the end, feeling inadequate to uphold
the collapsing societal familial expectations, many youth, who had increased contact with middle-
class schoolmates, felt the double bind.

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The double bind that these youth face between their commitment to family and social
mobility in part reflects the incompatible and disjointed societal expectations regarding
immigrants, particularly children of immigrants. It is clear that the idea of immigrant sacrifice
pushes these youth to privilege family survival and cohesion and contribute their bilingual
knowledge. Yet, many working-class youth in this study also strive to fulfill the societal and
parental expectations of becoming the “successful” or “good” children of immigrants who obtain
intergenerational mobility through academic and career achievement. Working-class language
brokers, therefore, find themselves in difficult circumstances in which they juggle multiple, and at
times, impossible demands, as achieving the idea of immigrant sacrifice interrupts their ability to
become the next generation of “productive” immigrant adults that the host society like the U.S.
expects from children of immigrants. Still, even when their “family responsibilities” sometimes
threatened to derail their educational and career development, many youth continued to value their
dual priorities and uphold the immigrant sacrifice narrative for the sake of family cohesion and
dignity. As Enrique, a 19-year-old Mexican youth who aspired to be a successful engineer one day
but whose mother required “non-stop translation” at a local hospital, explained, “It’s not like you
can get a divorce and walk out of the relationship. They are your parents. If I am not there for my
mom, people will treat her like she’s dumb.” How non-English speaking immigrants of color are
treated in various public spaces and how bilingual youth navigate multiple inequalities when they
translate for their immigrant parents are the questions that I turn to next. The ideology of good
immigrants, as it turns out, does more than creating intergenerational ambivalence; because the
meaning of “good immigrants” is almost synonymous with “normal American,” children at the
margin who do not have “right” class and race uncomfortably perform a normative idea of
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“American-ness” while developing different interactional strategies to negotiate power imbalances
pertaining to age, class, and race in different institutional contexts.

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Chapter 4: Doing American from an Outsider-Within Position
It’s Thursday afternoon, and I am volunteering at a police station that is situated in a diverse and
low-income neighborhood in southern California. The room is packed with people vying for an
officer’s attention. With the exception of one person, everyone in the waiting room is a person of
color. By my counts, there appear to be 3 Latino men, 2 Latina women, 2 Asian women, 1 Asian
man, 2 black women, and 1 black man. Asian man is going over a document with a teenager
who seems like her daughter. One of the Latina women brought three kids with her; she keeps
going in and out of the station with her crying baby while two boys are playing with a phone.
One of the black women parks her wheel chair right in front of the front desk, looking over the
waitlist to see if her turn is coming up. A black man in a nice brown suit and a red tie seems tired
as he is slumped in his seat, falling asleep. At the front desk, two police officers are helping
people, making their way through a waitlist that has at least ten names on it. One of the officers,
James, calls out the next person. “Carlos Gonzales, are you here?” As Carlos walks up to the
front desk, the phone rings. James picks up the phone. A minute later, he asks his coworker,
Martinez, to handle the call, explaining that the caller can’t speak English. Martinez, the only
Spanish-speaking officer at the front desk, sighs loudly and picks up the phone. The phone rings
again. This time, James asks the caller if this is an emergency and then puts the caller on hold.
Carlos, who has been waiting patiently, asks, “Habla espanol? [Do you speak Spanish?]” James
looks over to see if Martinez can help Carlos, but Martinez is still on the phone. James, who
took Spanish for two years in his high school, tells Carlos, “muy muy poquito [very very little
bit]” and tries to carry out a conversation. Carlos begins speaking to James in Spanish, but James
seems very frustrated and rolls his eyes. For the most part, James responds to Carlos in English
with one or two Spanish words in between. “Tell tu amigo [friend] to go away. He is loco
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[crazy].” About two minutes later, Carlos’s son, runs into the police station. “I am sorry I am
late, dad. I had to talk with my teacher after school.” The moment Carlos’s bilingual son walks
up to the front desk, Carlos’s face light up. Relieved, James says, “Yeah, you are late! Now, tell
me what your dad is saying.”
In the meantime, Officer Martinez hangs up the phone and calls another person on the
waitlist. “Jaeeun Park!” A Korean woman walks up to the desk, holding a pile of documents.
In broken English, she tries to explain the documents to Martinez. After listening for about three
seconds, Martinez says, “Wait, we need a Korean translator here!” On cue, I step in to translate.
In Korean, Jaeeun says, “I am so glad you speak Korean. These officers keep sending me to [the]
wrong places. I don’t have a car so I have to take different buses to come here. I took the time
off from work to come here.” She starts tearing up and goes on to explain she is a victim of
domestic violence. Officers initially told her to go to family court to obtain a restraining order
against her husband, the abuser. She explains, “The person at the court said to go back to the
police station, because having the police report would help my case. But, when I came back here
yesterday, they told me to go back to the court again. Nobody even tries to listen to me. This one
police officer just took out a piece of paper with the court address and yelled, go here! Ok?
That’s it.” She begins crying. Officer Martinez looks over and jokes, “Hey did you make her
cry?” Jaeeun looks over to Martinez and yells, “I need a police report. My husband go jail ok?”
Before I’m able to interpret Jaeeun’s comments to Officer Martinez, Officer James interjects and
asks, “Hey how do you say ‘wait’ in Korean? This lady is going on and on in Korean.” I respond,
“Say, ki-dah-ryo-ju-se-yo.” James replies, “What!? Ki-what? That’s so long. Why can it be
simple like ‘wait’ in English? Never mind. Gosh, these people seriously need to learn English.”
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He then picks up the phone again and says, “I am going to have to put you on hold.” He presses
the hold button and asks me to take the call after I finish with Jaeeun.
Later that afternoon, an older white man walks into the police station with a child. He
walks straight to the front desk and starts talking to Officer Martinez. Martinez tells him, “Sir, I
will be right with you, but please sign your name first.” He looks back and realizes that there are
a lot of people waiting in the room. As he is writing his name on the waitlist— John— he
complains, “We are going to be here forever.” When it was John’s turn to speak, he tells
Martinez that his step daughter, a Mexican-American, was physically abused by a black teacher
at her school. Martinez then tells John that this is a matter requiring school police attention and
provides him with the information about the school police department nearby. John tells
Martinez that he already tried the school police and demands a police report. When Martinez
says that it is not his duty to handle school related issues, John says, “Can I speak with your
supervisor?” The supervisor comes out and takes him to his office. After about fifteen minutes,
the supervisor asks Martinez to call the school department and have them file a report. As
Martinez is calling the school police department, John and the supervisor talk about how black
women are too aggressive. They laugh loudly.
With the exception of one Korean monolingual lady who wanted to speak with a
supervisor through me, I never witnessed non-English speakers bypassing the police officers at
the front desk and speaking with a supervisor like John did. Even when the Korean lady
requested that she speaks directly with a supervisor, one of the officers told me “not to get his
supervisor involved” and “just take care of her complaint.” While there were complaints forms
available in different languages, hanging on the corner of the wall, none of the police officers
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informed non-English speakers about the availability of these forms, compelling me to secretly
tell this Korean lady to mail in the form.
One month later, I was reminded about how hectic and busy it was to work at an
institution that was located in a low-income neighborhood when I interviewed Ashley, a white
nurse. Sitting across from her at a coffee shop— located only a few miles away from the police
station, Ashley gushed about how much she “loves” her career. As a nurse, she felt like she was
in position to “advocate for patients, take care of people’s health, and help the poor.” I then
asked her, “What is the most difficult part of your job?” She replied:
The most difficult part of the job is taking care of the patients and not being able
to do the nursing education and not being able to communicate effectively. I
think the other most frustrating thing is having providers not advocate for
patients. Having the doctors who refuse to educate the patients and leaving it to
the nurse. I think they are busy and they are trying to move along. So, they leave
it to the nurse and if nurses don’t take care of it, it does not get done. It’s not
always the nurse’s job to inform the patients. So, that’s sometimes frustrating.
And very few doctors speak Spanish, so if they want to speak to the patients, they
want to bring in secretary or the nurse or they use the family members. Yea, they
always use the children to translate.
In the middle of the interview, I asked her to provide an example of a difficult patient. Given that
the most difficult part of her job is “not being able to communicate effectively,” I expected
Ashley to get into the issue of language barrier between her and her non-English speaking
patients. To my surprise, she said, “White patients!” I asked her to elaborate for me:

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It’s socioeconomic thing. The more money you have, the more difficult you are.
So, that’s a joke, but it’s true. They have this idea that the nurses are their
waitress. We are just here to serve them. They expect doctors to check up on
them more often. So, if they are more educated, they have more questions. They
looked up on the internet before they come into the hospital. So, our white
patients are more difficult. But, if they don’t speak English, it’s on the nurses to
explain to [the treatments]. They don’t usually question the procedure. They are
a lot more passive so whatever procedure you do, they just follow instead of
asking “what are you doing to my body? What’s gonna happen now?” So, our
first generation immigrants are more subservient and more grateful and thankful
for their treatment. I think it’s a generation thing. So, our African American
patients who were in the system for generations are more difficult. They are more
demanding. They always look for what you can do for them. Versus, the little
lady from Guatemala is so grateful and thankful for whatever she can get.
Towards the end of the interview, I asked her, “What can be changed to make your job easier? I
know this is a difficult question.” Because she complained about “busy doctors,” and “entitled
white patients” who always want to talk with the doctors, I anticipated she would talk about
communication issues between the patients and doctors. I was wrong again. Ashley claimed,
“This is not a difficult question. Learning English is the simplest and easiest solution. If I move
to France, I have to learn how to speak French.”
***
A lack of translation services is only one type of inequality working-class immigrants
encountered. They also had to access services in low-income areas, where institutions like police
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offices and hospitals are busy and crowded. Many of the institutional agents I spoke to expressed
frustration about the lack of available resources. Some police officers complained that they want
to “go out in the field and catch the bad guys” instead of dealing with “minor issues” at the front
desk. Of course, the people who came into the police station did not think that their issues were
minor. Some were crying, others were yelling, and all of their issues seemed urgent, as they had
already waited far too long just to be heard.
In busy and crowded institutions in low-income neighborhoods, those who can use
language instrumentally to better negotiate with authorities are far more likely to obtain
information and resources. Although some nurses complained about “white people” who ask too
many questions, they also admitted that English-speakers who speak their concerns in
“professional” manners receive what they refer to as “VIP” services (Lareau 2003). Because
police officers and healthcare providers also know that “professional” English speakers— mostly
white men— can sue for institutional failure, prioritizing their needs was essential.
In contrast, although most police officers and healthcare workers ostensibly support
diversity and multiculturalism, “grateful little [ladies] from Guatemala” or other countries were
less likely to get their attention or institutional resources. Even when these non-English speaking
little ladies tried to challenge the “passive immigrant” stereotypes by yelling or expressing their
frustration, they— like the Korean woman who cried at the police station—often were ignored or
sent to different places, where they once again confronted institutionalized racism and language-
based exclusion. Furthermore, despite their efforts and commitment to “helping the poor,”
many institutional agents implicitly and explicitly condemned a growing immigrant population
who couldn’t speak English. Not only did police officers and healthcare providers in my study
fail to inform non-English speaking immigrants about their right to phone interpreters or
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availability of complaint forms in different languages, they also often used language—especially
Spanish—as a proxy to communicate racist views and express frustration toward linguistic
minorities of color.
Without a doubt, many English-speaking service providers working in low-income areas
face a lot of challenges. Ashley was not the only nurse who experienced difficulties
communicating with the growing number of immigrant patients. Caitlin, another nurse
interviewed claimed, “It’s busy enough to deal with English speakers. It’s crazy enough to deal
with arrogant doctors and impatient colleagues.” Rachel, another nurse said, “It is impossible to
provide a thousand-plus language resources for different immigrants.” Given these challenges
and the vast number of languages and dialects immigrants speak in a city like Los Angeles, it
might be reasonable to then ask bilingual children to translate. However, some healthcare
providers told me that in spite of a lack of institutional resources for interpretation, relying on
children for language brokering services generates discomfort. Because many healthcare
providers and police officers assume adults are “experts”, even when children brokers offer to
translate, they sometimes prefer bilingual adult staff instead. However, many of adult staff agents
are not sufficiently bilingual, and often describe translation as something outside their job
description. For example, police officer Martinez, who was born and raised in Los Angeles,
learned Spanish from his grandmother. Martinez told me that he “sold” his bilingual skills during
his job interview, but admitted that he was not fluent in Spanish. Martinez was not an isolated
case; a third generation Mexican-American nurse named Isabel told me, “I look Mexican, but I
don’t speak Spanish.” Still, many doctors and police officers often asked “bilingual” agents to
translate for them on an ad hoc basis. Indeed, any adult person of color could be asked to serve
this job. For example, one doctor admitted, “Sometimes, I pull the cleaning lady to translate for
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me.” Some bilingual nurses and police officers also complained that they do not like to provide
translation services without extra compensation.
At the same time, my ethnographic research shows that these English-speaking
professionals did not have many options other than to rely on children. Yet, instead of expressing
gratitude, some police officers demanded these children’s language brokering services, such as
James’s outward frustration for Carlos’s tardiness. Similarly, in the healthcare setting, one nurse
bluntly reported, “It’s not my job to translate for immigrants. They should bring a bilingual
person. If their kids speak English, they should be there, because the patient is their mother,
father. It’s their family.”
Like these institutional agents, children also believe that language brokering is their
family responsibility, as I demonstrate in Chapter 3. Nonetheless, children language brokering
responsibilities are not just family responsibilities; they are also externally imposed and socially
enforced. While these children provided their service for many English-speaking institutions, this
work, for the most part, was not treated as a labor and was therefore under-appreciated. How and
with what consequences do the racialized bilingual children of immigrants navigate institutional
inequalities when they translate for their parents? How do these strategies provide them with
resources that are otherwise limited or inaccessible for their families?
In this chapter, I synthesize interactional and intersectional approaches to analyze the
relationship between unequal social interactions and the countervailing process of resistance
among Mexican-and Korean-American children language brokers. I demonstrate that many
youth confront racialized nativism as well as age and class inequalities when they translate for
their immigrant parents in adult-centric, English speaking spaces. In hopes of gaining access to
social citizenship or the guarantee of social provision (Fraser and Gordon 1992), these youth
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have developed various strategies to contest multiple forms of subordination during unequal
translating encounters. By highlighting how working-class children of immigrants
simultaneously reproduce and challenge the category of “American” in contextually specific
interactions, this chapter calls attention to how the social location of the margin is both a site of
resistance and repression.
Intersectionality in Interactions
Inequality is co-constructed at both macro and micro levels. Gender and race, for example, are
not biological or static entities but rather social structures reproduced in interactions and
institutions (Omi and Winant 1986; West and Zimmerman 1987; Ridgeway 2011. Because
structural mechanisms, such as policies and dominant ideologies, are built into institutional
arrangements, individuals cannot escape “accountability” or social regulation (Hollander 2013;
Kane 2012; Lucal 1999; Walzer and Oles 2003; West and Fenstermaker 2002). Consequently,
people often develop interactional strategies to “pass as normal” and avoid “face-threatening
situations” (Goffman 1955, 1959, 1963). Rather than merely “displaying” or suppressing their
“differences,” however, individuals’ “competence as members of society is hostage” to the
production of unequal relations (West and Zimmerman 1987:126). Individuals, therefore, do not
merely internalize societal norms; instead they actively accomplish and recreate categorical
differences such as race, class, and gender at the interactional level.
Although hegemonic conceptions of Americanness provide scaffolding for social
interactions, individuals living at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression can also use
their social location to resist inequalities of power. Scholars studying race, class, and gender
have long argued that the margin is a site of oppression and resistance, where the subordinated
can cultivate reflexive perspectives (Collins 1986, 2000; Crenshaw 1991; DuBois 1903; Fanon
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1963; hooks 1984; Kelly 1993; Rawick 1972). For example, taking into account the unequal
power relationship between white and blacks, DuBois (1903, 1920) argued that Blacks
experience double consciousness, which allows them to see the hypocrisy of racist practices that
often remain invisible to whites. In her intersectional analysis of gender, class, and race, bell
hooks (1984) has also observed that the margin can enable the subordinated to look “both from
the outside in and from the inside out,” thus helping them develop “a mode of seeing unknown to
the oppressors” (p. vii). In short, being an “outsider-within” can enable individuals to make
“creative use of their marginality” (Collins 1986:14), thereby potentially changing the social
order.
However, an outsider-within status does not always allow people at the margin to openly
resist all forms of institutional realities. Because certain aspects of structure are more apparent to
people based on their social locations, some aspects of structural inequality may remain invisible
in everyday interactions. For example, in the United States, class intersects with race and other
axes of power to shape people’s access to cultural capital and social networks (Bettie 2003;
Bourdieu 1984; Horvat et al. 2003; Lareau 2003). In a highly racialized society like the United
States, class often operates as an invisible social structure, and most people experience their class
position through race (Bettie 2003; Hall 1978). Moreover, individuals at the margin have limited
resources and opportunities to openly confront the powerful, even if they may be conscious of
oppression. Therefore, they engage in everyday resistance (Scott 1985) or covert resistance
(Hollander and Einwohner 2004), which goes unnoticed and thus unpunished by its target.
Research on passing, for example, has demonstrated that many light-skinned Blacks have
resisted structural barriers by passing as whites to gain access that would have been otherwise
forbidden (Daniel 2002; Khanna 2010; Williamson 1980). Gay and lesbians can also pass as
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straight to oppose social forces that may harm them (Kanuha 1999). Other times, knowing and
anticipating multiple discriminations might mean that individuals have to, at times, emulate “the
language and manner of oppressor” in an attempt to protect themselves from the interlocking
structure of race, class, and gender (Lorde 1984:114). While such subtle subversion, which hides
the intent of the act, might not produce visible and immediate social changes, these oppositional
behaviors are a form of resistance that can minimize repression or mitigate a dominant group’s
claims (Hollander and Einwonhner 2004; Kelly 1993; Scott 1985). As a result of limited support
from “mainstream” political institutions, these infrapolitics (Scott 1985)—a set of deliberate and
tactical choices based on subordinates’ understanding of unequal power relations—are important
political acts (Kelly 1993).
I build on this scholarship to theorize how the continuously evolving boundary between
“American” and “foreigner” regulates social interactions of immigrant youth and ultimately
affects the distribution of resources. At the same time, I highlight how youths’ marginal status
enables them to deploy strategies of resistance derived from their ability to see how multiple
inequalities converge within their lives. I argue that children do not simply “become” American
or passively integrate into the mainstream. Instead, these children of immigrants actively
perform or “do” American from the position of “outsider-within” to contest unequal social
hierarchies and exclusionary practices for family survival.
Doing American from Outsider-Within Position
Below, I present different interactional strategies that bilingual youth employed during
their translation encounters. As demonstrated in previous research, bilingual youth in this study
played vital roles in navigating institutions and using their translation skills to speak for their
parents (Bauer 2010, 2013; Katz 2014; Kwon 2014; Orellana et al. 2003; Orellana 2009; Park
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2005; Valenzuela 1999). In the process of representing and advocating for their parents,
however, they came across racial, class, and other structural inequalities. Because these
structural mechanisms prevented their families from achieving full social citizenship, the
entitlement and privileges enjoyed by dominant group members, young language brokers broadly
adopted three different strategies: (1) Passing, (2) Shielding, and (3) Posing. Rather than trying
to assimilate into U.S. society or internalize “American” values, these strategies reflect how
youth perform or “do” American from the outsider-within position in hopes of gaining equal
rights and status as “insiders.”
Passing as “American” Adults
Although spoken language varies among all speakers, some languages are racialized, thus
limiting minority speakers’ access to vital resources (Baugh 2007; Hill 1998). Cognizant of such
assessments, many bilingual youth in this study attempted to pass as “American” adults by using
the phone. Through their accumulated language brokering experiences, these language brokers
learned that their social position as children, as well as racial meanings depicting their
monolingual parents as “undeserving immigrants” hindered their ability to gain social citizenship
rights. Consequently, they intentionally used an avoidance strategy—a defensive measure
designed to prevent anticipated face threatening encounters (Goffman 1955). Furthermore,
children repeatedly conflated “talking white” with “sounding like an American,” and said that
speaking like a white person was equivalent to speaking without any accents. As Rosina Lippi-
Green (1997) asserts, “every native speaker of English has some regional variety, with the
particular phonology of that area, or a phonology which represents one or more areas for some
people” (p. 45). Although “standard” English is non-existent no matter how unmarked the
person’s language may seem (Agha 1998, 2003; Hill 1998; Lippi-Green 1997), in the minds of
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bilingual children, like many other Americans, “standard” English was a colorless language
spoken only by whites, and thus it was imperative that they spoke it in unequal translation
interactions. By analyzing this avoidance strategy to sound like a “white” adult on the phone, I
argue that pre-existing social inequalities, including racialized nativism, are produced and
reproduced at the micro-level. At the same time, however, such everyday acts that go unnoticed
by English-speaking authorities helped these children to challenge race and age inequalities and
connect their parents to crucial resources.
Mina, a 17-year-old, was one of many “expert translators” who had acted as her parents’
translator since she moved to Los Angeles from Korea at age 8. Through her accumulated
language brokering experiences, she learned that prevalent societal perceptions about children as
naïve and incompetent (Pugh 2014; Thorne 1993) or innocent objects (Zelizer 1985) limited her
ability to help her family access resources. She reported that many adult authority figures did
not take her seriously when she spoke and represented for her monolingual parents in face-to-
face interactions. As a result, she preferred to talk over the phone so that she could sound like an
adult:
It’s really annoying when some people just think you are just a kid. I mean I
understand that’s how adults think about young people, but I am just trying to
help my mom… I know all of my mom’s intimate information by heart. [When I
pretend to be my mom on the phone] I feel more powerful because they take you
more seriously cuz they think they are speaking with an adult.
It is likely that many children, regardless of their racial background, sometimes
act or try to sound like a grown-up to gain respect from adults or even peers.
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Yet, having to shoulder what many Americans consider “adult” responsibilities, youth in
this study perceived themselves as more mature than others of the same age group. This
mismatch between their sense of relative age and widespread chronological
understanding of age— which ascribed limited status to children and youth— compelled
language brokers like Mina to use the phone in hopes of gaining resources for her family.
Furthermore, for these racialized bilingual children of immigrants who have been
historically signified as what whiteness is not (Espiritu 1994; Glenn 2002; Jacobson
1998; Lipsitz 1998), using the phone not only helped them pass as adults, but also as
“American” adults. Flora, a 16-year-old Mexican youth, was one of the many
respondents who learned from her language brokering experiences that “looking like a
Mexican little girl made a difference” during social interactions. As a result, Flora
sometimes deliberately used the phone to access services that her mother needed. I asked
her to give me an example:
My mom wanted to buy a new car, so I went with her to Culver City to translate
for her. But, we were just sitting there and nobody came to help us! So, I was
like, let’s call them and see what they say. I sound white, right? So, then they
were like so nice on the phone. All of sudden, they had so many cars available
for us to buy!
Vincent, a big dark-skinned 17-year-old Mexican youth with tattoos, was another
language broker who used the phone to “erase” a racialized masculinity, which cast men
of color as violent criminals. Growing up, Vincent became an easy target of racial
profiling, especially when he accompanied his father to work in “rich” neighborhoods to
fix houses. During the interview, he described one “unforgettable” incident in which his
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race and gender became a “problem” when he translated for his parents while his family
was trying to move to a nicer apartment. An apartment manager, who sounded
welcoming on the phone, suddenly refused to show the apartment upon arrival, telling his
parents, through Vincent, that the space was now occupied. Vincent later learned that
when his fair-skinned younger sister, who Vincent described as “nerdy looking,”
accompanied his parents to look at apartments, they did not encounter any problems in
accessing apartments.
Like other language brokers, Vincent’s outsider status enabled him to see the
simultaneous and discriminatory operations of age and physical embodiment in a situated
interaction. As such, Vincent became highly conscious of his choice between phone
conversations and face-to-face interactions. Born in the U.S., Vincent spoke English better than
Spanish and his deep voice made it easier for him to pretend to be his father over the phone. In
this process, Vincent—like African-Americans who can switch between so-called Standard
English and African American Vernacular English (Baugh 1992, 2007; Lippi-Green 1997) —
was able to prevent his racialized masculinity from interfering with his “job”:
I don’t want my look and tattoo to get in the way when I try to do my job. It’s a
waste of time to deal with people who tell my family that they don’t have the
apartment available, when I clearly see the sign (seeking tenants). Like I said,
people think I am a cholo. But, I don’t sound like one. I sound American on the
phone.
As demonstrated by Vincent’s story, in comparison to Korean families, Mexican families
confronted more racial discrimination, especially when they were purchasing or renting goods
such as cars, apartments, or other expensive products. This is possibly because Mexicans are
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racialized as working class (Bettie 2003; Jiménez 2008) whereas Koreans have been uniformly
touted as exemplar middle-class model minorities (Kim 1999; Lew 2006; Park 2005).
Accordingly, when translation work involved inquiring about advertised goods on the phone,
Mexican language brokers like Flora and Vincent, were more likely to benefit from using the
phone. Still, because Korean-Americans, like Mexican Americans, are viewed as foreigners
(Kim 1999; Lew 2006; Park 2005), they also tried to sound “white.” For example, Jennifer, who
used the derogatory term FOB (fresh off the boat) to describe how Koreans were seen by other
people, commented, “People think that all Koreans are FOBs, but if you speak without accents,
and if they don’t see you, then they think I am white”
In fact, many children reported that using the phone often reduced their anxiety. Not
worrying as much about how their race and age would play a role in the social interaction, some
children echoed what Jinju, a 15-year-old Korean-American youth, said: “I don’t know why, but
I can talk better over on the phone. I don’t get intimidated because the other person doesn’t see
me.” Studies have shown that when people become aware of negative racial stereotypes
concerning their group, they are likely to become anxious and fail to perform at their maximum
(Spencer, Steele, and Quinn 1999; Steele 1997). Accordingly, it is possible that children who
were cognizant of the role of race and age in translation encounters actually communicated better
over the phone knowing that others would not judge their ability to communicate based on their
race and age. Although talking over the phone may reduce children’s anxieties, this particular
tactic of “doing American” adult over the phone does not always enable translators to avoid
being racialized as Mexican or Korean. For instance, when language brokers call state and local
agencies, they have to provide agency workers with “racial information” such as their parents’
last names. But, even in these cases, it is quite possible that there is a short delay in triggering
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racial meanings when language brokers strategically speak what they viewed as “standard”
English. Furthermore, “doing American” or sounding “white,” as many children told me, had a
clear benefit when they were simply inquiring about an apartment, car loan, or advertised goods.
Undoubtedly, race plays a significant role in interactions that do not involve language
brokering. However, as I have demonstrated, translation situations compel children to respond to
age and age inequalities (Orellana 2009) by avoiding direct translation encounters with fluent
English-speakers. Instead, they used the phone and their English fluency to sound like an
“American.” This strategy of passing as “American” adults demonstrates that children of
immigrants, as a less powerful group, have to “do American” even if they do not entirely
embrace or reject “American values.” Because what is deemed appropriate “American”
behavior is structured and regulated by institutions, youth had to craft interactional strategies to
gain resources. Therefore, their actions, which highlight children’s agency, reveal more about the
adult-centric and race-conscious environment that children have to maneuver and less about their
actual ability to pass as “American.” Still, their outsider-within status allowed them to anticipate
how others would judge their behaviors and consequently hold them accountable for their
actions. Cognizant of such accountability in face-to-face interactions, they covertly resisted their
imposed racial identity and the normative views of “native” children that weakened their ability
to help their families. These youths, therefore, made a reflective choice among limited
alternatives in order to provide their parents with the better standard of living to which they were
entitled.
Shielding Parents from Racialized Nativism: Censoring and Filtering
In the U.S., members of the dominant group, who speak the national language, rarely
need to learn the languages of “other” groups (Agha 2003; Lippi-Green 1997; Hill 1998). Due to
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historical legacy, media representations, and the actions of government that reinforced the image
of minority-language speakers as “unassimilable foreigners,” children of immigrants, as
indicated earlier, often strive to master “standard” English in hopes of gaining the entitlement
and privilege enjoyed by dominant groups. Yet, awareness of the interlocking systems of
oppression can help people at the margin to intentionally oppose the social forces that harm them
(Collins 1986, 2000; Crenshaw 1991; DuBois 1903; Fanon 1963; Gengler 2012; Hollander 2002;
hooks 1984; Kelly 1993; Rawick 1972). In this section, I show how bilingual youth censor and
filter the utterances of English-speaking monolinguals when translating for their parents. In this
process, youth creatively use their bilingual skills in order to contest and shield their parents
from racialized nativism. Censoring and filtering strategies, therefore, highlight these youths’
heightened consciousness of unequal power dynamics, which in turn, compels them to engage in
covert resistance. Although censoring and filtering strategies do not always help these youths to
gain social citizenship rights, young language brokers minimize the injury in the face of
racialized nativism. Because the dominant groups enjoy the right to social safety for having the
“right” race, marginalized youths’ actions must be understood as one strategy for claiming social
citizenship.
At the beginning of interviews, youth often claimed that they tried their best to translate
everything when acting as a liaison between their parents and English-speaking monolinguals.
Upon probing their responses, however, there were a number of occasions where bilingual youth
deliberately censored or filtered conversations. Maria was a 16-year-old Mexican American who
used her bilingual ability to translate for her Spanish-speaking parents in all aspects of their lives
in Los Angeles. In my interview with Maria, she recalled an incident in which she “got super
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angry” at an English-speaking, monolingual police officer who “gave her mom a hard time”
when her mother was at a police station trying to report a hit-and-run accident:
My mom forgot to bring her new insurance card. So when I translated this to that
police, he was like, “Tell your mother that in this country, it’s illegal to drive
without the insurance.” He then went on and on about the consequence of driving
without insurance and a driver’s license. I was thinking, “I never said my mom
drives without the insurance card!” But I kept my tongue. I just told him that she
meant to, but forgot.
While electing not challenge the officer, Maria also censored and omitted parts of the
exchange to her mother. Rather than telling her mom that the officer assumed that she did not
have insurance, she elected to say, “Let’s go get your insurance card. He said we need to bring
the insurance card to file the report.” When they came back with the new card, Maria interpreted
the questions on the police report for her mother. “We had to draw the cars on the form, too. I
drew the other car so much bigger,” Maria recounted with a smile. When I asked Maria why she
didn’t tell her mother about what the police officer had said, she told me, “I didn’t want my mom
to get mad. Plus, he won’t take me and my mom seriously because we are Mexicans and I am a
kid!”
Antonio, a 15-year-old Mexican youth, was another language broker who omitted words
to “protect [his] mom from feeling hurt.” Growing up, Antonio accompanied both his father,
who remodeled apartments, and his mother, who cleaned vacant units. Though Antonio
generally enjoyed accompanying his parents and helping them, he often became aware of how
language and race played on important role in determining the dynamics of his translation
interactions. Antonio, like many other language brokers, repeatedly told me that his parents
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were treated like children because they did not understand the English language: “You know
sometimes people think my parents are dumb because they can’t understand English. They treat
them like little kids.” Being aware that his parents were constantly judged by their “un-
American” behaviors of failing to speak English fluently, Antonio sometimes deliberately
censured and omitted some words when he translated for his parents. Sharing that he “really
hates the apartment manager because she thinks she owns [his] parents,” Antonio described one
memorable event when he decided not to translate everything that the apartment manager told his
mother:
My mom was just cleaning the apartment and that crazy manager walks in and
told her not to go up and down the stairs all crazy. But I didn’t tell my mom that
she called her crazy. I just told her that people downstairs can hear her walking
so we should be quiet. My mom is doing this work to support me and my brother.
Similarly, Jungsun, a Korean-American girl whose father painted houses for a
living, clearly remembered censoring parts of clients’ messages in order to prevent his
hard working father from feeling upset:
Jungsun: The client called me and said “Tell your dad that he needs to work
faster. He is too lazy.”
Interviewer: Really? So, did you tell your dad what she said?
Jungsun: Not everything. I didn’t say that she said my dad is too lazy, because
he’s not! I didn’t want him to get upset.
Interviewer: So, what did you tell him instead?
Jungsun: I said, “I think that customer is in rush to finish the job.”
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Censoring the content of messages was even more noticeable among children with
undocumented parents, because their translation work involved gauging whether or not the other
party possessed the power to deport their parents. My interviews with children with
undocumented parents confirmed earlier studies that showed children’s hyperawareness of their
family’s legal status (Dreby 2012; Menjívar 2011). Because interviews were conducted during
the time when enforcement-driven police had produced a record high number of deportations
(Dreby 2012), both undocumented children and U.S. citizens with undocumented families often
worried about the possibility of deportation. Living in fear, these children tried to minimize their
interactions with government authorities and tried to stay away from authority figures. For
example, when I asked Jesus, a 14-year-old youth with Mexican undocumented parents, if there
were people who made the translation experience difficult, he paused and told me about a
drunken man who hit his father’s car and ran. When his father chased him down, the man finally
pulled his car over to the side and got out of the car. Jesus then stepped in as the translator
telling the man that his father just wants the payment to fix the damages on his car. Jesus then
heard xenophobic and racist remarks, which he decided not to translate:
Jesus: I understood what my dad didn’t understand. He was talking trash about
Mexicans, like “Oh, you illegal. You wetback and all that. And, he said he was
gonna send my dad back to Mexico.
Interviewer: Wow, that’s crazy. So, did you tell your dad what that drunken guy
said?
Jesus: I actually didn’t cause I know that it would anger my dad, and he’ll start
arguing with the person. I was thinking, what if this guy calls the police and my
dad, he doesn’t have proper documentation, he could easily be deported, and now
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I heard that the immigration people of the United States are actually harder on
people without documentation now. Yeah, I didn’t tell my dad because he doesn’t
have to listen to him.
Jesus clenched his fists in anger during the interview and shared that this man allegedly
committed a felony and almost killed him and his father. Though Jesus wished that his father,
who he described as a good fighter, just “beat him up,” he used his bilingual ability to prevent
the possible consequence of “getting into trouble with the law.”
If many children censored some words to protect their parents from racialized nativism,
other children filtered messages and used their bilingual skills—or took advantage of other
parties’ inability to understand Spanish or Korean— to contest those who treated their parents
with disrespect. In these cases, children felt powerful. Macarena, a 19-year-old youth, followed
her mother to clean houses and often translated for her mother and her mother’s clients. Though
she often encountered friendly clients, she also met unreasonably “demanding” or “cheap”
clients who tried to get her mother to perform extra services without fees. Telling me that her
mom was “way too nice” with these rude clients, Macarena recounted a time when she used her
bilingual skills to secretly charge more for undeserving clients:
There have been times where I have taken out some stuff out either because the
people we’ve met didn’t treat us nicely or I just felt it would be best not to
mention it. For example, my mom says like, she’ll clean the windows like inside
and out for free, but sometimes I don’t translate that, especially if clients are rude.
So, even though my mom says it’s free, I just say that I will give them discount.
Macarena’s clever strategy of filtering highlights that language brokers are active agents
who use their bilingual skills and outsider within position to manipulate situations that could
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otherwise constrain their family’s lives. Cognizant of her family’s position in the social
hierarchy, she avoided conflict. Yet, Macarena, like many other language brokers, subtly and
skillfully countered “rude” English monolinguals whose power had the potential to negatively
impact their family lives. Children like Macarena, therefore, are positioned to experience what
DuBois (1903; 1920) once dubbed as double consciousness, which allows marginalized or
“veiled” individuals to observe insiders better than they can be monitored. While English-
speaking adults did not have the burden associated with the veil— that is, understanding the
profound bigotry that racialized working-class children experiences in the United States— they
also lacked the linguistic skills that bilingual children employed to subvert multiple hierarchies.
Shielding strategies exemplify the everyday resistance that hides intent of action.
Lacking power, these youth creatively used their marginality in an attempt to prevent face-
threatening acts (Goffman 1963). With these protective measures, they reestablished the existing
social order and maintained their parents’ sense of dignity. Although these youth did not always
achieve the rights and social provisions that they were entitled to, they contested racialized
nativism, and protected their parents form exploitation of their labor. Narratives presented in this
section underscore how children of immigrants are not just “being made.” Instead, many youth
can see through the “veil” and make creative use of their marginality to change the harsh realities
of their lives.
Posing Like Middle-Class Adults: Invisible Inequality
Although many language brokers recognized how race, age, and nativism operated in
social interactions, they often did not fully comprehend how class intersects with other forms of
inequalities to shape translation outcomes. Youth in this study often associated knowledge of
middle-class cultural symbols (such as language) with whiteness or being “American.” For
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example, Mark was a Mexican youth who often accompanied his father, a real estate agent, to
meetings in suburban neighborhoods. Conflating racial difference with class difference and
constantly using “Americans” to mean “whites,” Mark proudly shared that dealing with
“American” people required him to “act white, wear a dress shirt and tie, and study
vocabularies.” However, as Lareau (2003:11) reminds us, “The ability to use language
instrumentally, that is, to use vocabulary along with reasoning and negotiation skills to achieve
specific ends, is an important class-based advantage.” While many children like Mark believed
that dressing up or speaking in jargon could mediate racial (read: class) difference, the reality of
what I call posing — an attempt to account for the class difference between their working-class
families and middle-class professionals— hardly allowed youths to achieve social citizenship.
Lacking the middle-class advantage of effortlessly reasoning and negotiation with authorities,
youth often felt inadequate after they tried to gain social citizenship by emulating middle-class
behaviors. Focusing on two representative cases, I analyze central ways in which language
brokers describe their parents’ racialized and classed interactional styles— acting ghetto and
acting obedient— and show how they try to overcome these styles by posing like middle-class
adults. In line with previous research that illustrates how social class profoundly influences
interactions and an actor’s ability to access institutional resources (Bettie 2003; Bourdieu 1984;
Horvat et al. 2003; Lareau 2003), I demonstrate that a posing strategy did not allow youths to
contest unequal power relations.
A number of participants reported that their parents responded to racialized nativism by
acting “uneducated” or “ghetto.” Carolina, an 18-year-old, accompanied her mother to her
younger sister’s school to translate after Lupe, her sister, “got busted smoking in the bathroom.”
Carolina recounted her translation encounter:
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[My mom] was screaming and asking [Lupe’s] teacher if she saw Lupe smoking
(in Spanish), because Lupe told us that she was just in the restroom when her
friends were smoking. The teacher didn’t see it. She told my mom that she heard
this from other kids. And that was it. My mom totally lost it and started acting all
ghetto.
Though Carolina understood why her mother got upset, she admitted that she became
embarrassed. She feared that the teacher, who already “sighted and rolled her eyes” during this
meeting, would judge her family even more harshly. As an upwardly mobile Mexican youth
who gained admission to a magnet program in her high school, Carolina frequently interacted
with peers who came from middle class backgrounds, and knew that there were differences
between the ways her mother talked and the ways other parents interacted with school authorities
(Lareau 2003). Consequently, Carolina tried to pose like a middle-class adult and tried to
negotiate her inherited class identity from home with what she understood as the “American”
(read: middle-class) identity. She told the teacher, “There is not enough evidence.” Despite her
attempt at passing as middle-class, Carolina felt that this strategy did not work out when Lupe
ended up getting suspended from school. As with many children language brokers that I
interviewed, Carolina blamed herself for not being firm enough: “I felt bad because I felt like I
was not being professional enough. You know be firm with the teacher. I felt bad that I could
not defend my sister.”
While some children language brokers believed that being ghetto was a stereotypical
“racial” characteristic, others claimed that being obedient – another typical way of describing
how their parents responded to racialized nativism – was the “immigrant” characteristic that they
had to overcome during translation. As with being “ghetto,” acting “obedient” may have been a
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disposition that many working-class or poor families unconsciously employed during their
interactions with authorities. Nevertheless, they did not characterize this behavior as a class
disposition. Rather, believing that these obedient characteristics reflected their parents’
immigrant background, children language brokers tried to “do American.” Sungmin came to Los
Angeles from Korea when he was 8 years old. At the time of his interview, he had spnt 7 years
attending schools in Los Angeles Koreatown with mostly Black and Latino children. As an
“introverted” Asian boy who was visible in school because of his race, he did not enjoy going to
school and often got into fights. Sungmin shared one incident where he acted as his mother’s
translator when he was about to receive a week-long suspension from school for “beating” a
Guatemalan classmate: “I was just standing in line to get lunch. And, Jose spit on me and was
like hey chino, ching-chang, ching-chang.” During his meeting with the principal, his Korean
monolingual mother asked him to translate and say she was very sorry. Sungmin told me that he
was angry that his mother acted like an “immigrant”:
I was mad because I wanted my mom to be like other American parents. Defend
me! Because my mom acts like an immigrant, [the principal] already had an
upper hand on my mom.
During the meeting, Sungmin convinced his mother that the decision was unfair. As soon
as his mother agreed with Sungmin, he “yelled” at the principal by exhorting, “Even though I
broke the rule, making fun of someone and spitting is also bad. It’s unfair. Jose has to get
suspension, too. He made fun of me first!” However, Sungmin could not change the decision
made by the principal. Although Sungmin, like other youth, lived in segregated neighborhoods
and interacted with nonwhite immigrants on a regular basis, he still understood “American
parents” as opposite of immigrants. While Sungmin believed that he could persuade the principal
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like “American parents” did, in reality, his interactional strategies did not resemble the strategies
deployed by middle-class parents. Not only do middle-class parents effectively intervene in
school matters by speaking with higher authorities or tapping into their networks (Horvat et al.
2003), they also employ professional and honorific registers within a language to deploy
particular social statues in interactions (Agha 2003). Without knowing how these “invisible”
class rules operate in everyday interactions, Sungmin reported that he felt powerless and
frustrated.
Clearly, posing as middle-class adults was purposive and intentional, similar to the other
strategies discussed in this paper. Youths were cognizant of racial stereotypes associated with
the “angry person of color” or “submissive immigrants.” They also knew that racialized
nativism operated in their lives to constrain their access to resources. Consequently, working-
class children tried to “do American” at the risk of racial assessment and tried to present their
parents as “rational” adults, often coded with the behaviors and mannerisms of “professional”
white men. These children, therefore, exercised enormous agency and resisted what they
perceived as unfair treatment by being “firm” and “assertive.” Yet, as the stories of Carolina and
Sungmin demonstrate, these reflective actions were offset by their unreflective and unintentional
deployment of their habitus, a set of socially learned, classed dispositions (Bettie 2003; Bourdieu
1984). While age and race were significant contributors to these inequalities, youths in this study
also lacked middle-class knowledge since they did not grow up in households in which parents
engaged in concerted cultivation (Lareau 2003) by teaching their children how to make
institutions accommodate their needs. Because these “rules” of class— such as mobilizing social
network or enacting middle-class status through language use— were relatively obscure and
invisible, they felt inadequate and often blamed themselves or their parents for failing to change
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the decisions made by authorities. While their accumulated experiences may enable these youth
to deploy “middle-class” behaviors in the future, it is important to note that “doing American”
involves both recognized and rewarded displays of a dominant middle-class (and masculine) set
of norms which frames both Asian and Latino families as foreign in the first place.
***
“Doing” is inseparable from “structure,” since the two co-construct one another (Giddens
1981, 1984; Hays 1994; Hollander 2013; Sewell 1992; West and Zimmerman 2009).
Interlocking systems of oppression, for example, produce a marginal social location that poor
and working-class children of immigrants have had to navigate. For example, knowing that the
categories of Latinos and Asians define what “whiteness” is not (Espiritu 1994, 2003; Dhingra
2007, 2013; Kim 1999) and being aware of how children are seen as naive and incompetent
(Pugh 2014; Thorne1993; Zelizer 1985), language brokers tried to pass as “American adults,”
shield their parents from racial slurs, and pose as middle class adults— from an outsider-within
position. Enacting social citizenship is not always successful as it often requires “natural”
expressions of the upper-middle class (Bettie 2003; Bourdieu 1984; Horvat et al. 2003; Lareau
2003). Lacking the understanding of— and ability to enact— middle-class rules, working-class
youth in this study sometimes felt inadequate and powerless in face-to-face interactions.
Comparing the posing strategy to account for class differences with the strategy of passing as an
American adult over the phone illustrates how a successful outcome of these interactions
depends on the context of the interactions. Youth in this study were more likely to pass over the
phone with someone who only hears their so-called “standard” English. Yet, trying to “pose” as
middle-class adults in face-to-face institutional contexts was more difficult, not only because
their age and race became visible, but also because of their class background.
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Although this chapter shows that language brokers’ situated doings often unintentionally
recreated existing structures (Hall 1986), doing American from an outsider-within position
allowed them to shield their parents from racialized nativism, exploitation of their labor, public
abuse, and their family’s exclusion from social services. Their strategies, therefore, must be
understood as covert resistance (Hollander and Einwonhner 2004), especially when they do not
have other means to resist unequal power relations as young children of immigrants. In other
words, children of immigrants are not simply “being made” or strive to become “American.”
Rather, they can use their social position of outsider-within to contest multiple inequalities
during everyday interactions while changing their social and economic realities. The margin,
therefore, can create moments of subversion, resistance, and potential for empowerment.

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Chapter 5: American Dream and Inclusion Work
Thus far, I have argued that racialized nativism works in tandem with an ideology of “good”
immigrants to create a double bind for working-class children of immigrants. These structural
forces compel youth at the margin to “do” American in public spaces in hopes of gaining
resources, making my informants’ everyday lives overwhelmingly difficult.
How do language brokers cope with the familial double bind? Based on the existing
literature on assimilation theory, one might expect them to blame these irreconcilable demands
on their parents’ traditional culture. These “assimilated” children would cope with ambivalence
by complaining about their parents’ inability to speak English or by bluntly reporting that they
are envious of “American” children who enjoy (seemingly) carefree childhoods. They might find
teachers or counselors who use the popular “cultural-clash” framework in an attempt to
understand their lives. Alternatively, they might rely on what Jennifer Silva (2013) refers to as a
past-centered “therapeutic narrative.” Silva (2013) argues that the cultural logic of neoliberalism
reverberates in the lives of working-class young people, who struggle to make their lives
meaningful and comprehensible in a world without a safety net. Instead of blaming the erosion of
state support for their unstable future, many working-class young people search for happiness in
their lives by controlling their behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. In this process, they draw harsh
boundaries against their families, who could not overcome hardships through their
determination, and define themselves as worthy individuals who broke out of their unstable and
imperfect family past. Having grown up in working-class households characterized by insecurity,
children of immigrants might embrace therapeutic narratives and criticize their parents for their
inability to overcome hardships without the help of their children. Finally, Rios (2011) argues
that one of the unanticipated effects of marginalization is that it empowers some youth to
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develop a strong motivation to change punitive social control and transform other forms of
inequalities. Although many working-class boys of color enact their oppositional identities by
breaking the law, he finds that others participated in marches and protests aimed at stopping
police brutality. As I have demonstrated, language brokers have had powerful experiences
witnessing how multiple inequalities operate in their lives, and their outsider-within position has
allowed them to both see, and at times protect their parents from racialized nativism.
Consequently, one might optimistically think that language brokers would use their everyday
experiences and shared struggles of translating for their working-class immigrant parents to
counter broad systems of domination.
Yet, in my interviews with working-class children of immigrants, none of these theories
resonated completed. In this chapter, I continue to call attention to my informants’ marginal
social position by demonstrating how difficult it is for youth to negotiate the familial double bind
and rearticulate imposed differences of race, class, and status. In contrast to previous studies, I
find that the vast majority of informants expressed a great sense of respect for their working-
class immigrant parents even though their parents had “failed” to fully assimilate into the
mainstream. Instead of creating boundaries against their parents or blowing up, I argue that
working-class language brokers cope with their sense of ambivalence by engaging in what I call
inclusion work—an attempt to resist controlling images by turning marginality into a perceived
asset for belonging in America.
Scholars have long argued that normalized expectations of the “American family” or
White, middle-class, heterosexual, nuclear families construct other families as problematic
(Collins, 2000; Espiritu, 1997, 2003; Glenn, 1983; Hays 2003; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994; Pyke,
2000; Thornton-Dill, 1988; Zinn, 1989). Because controlling images—the cultural tropes that
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denigrate working-class, immigrant families of color as inferior and dysfunctional—validate
whiteness as “normal,” racial minorities draw upon “timeless American values” of hardwork
(Newman, 1999) or essentialized culture (Espiritu, 2003) to normalize their daily lives (Park
2005) and maintain “intersectional dignities” (Estrada and Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2011).
Building on this scholarship, I argue that working-class children of immigrants respond
to the implicit criticisms about “bad” immigrants and dysfunctional families by accentuating
what they perceived as positive qualities of their immigrant family. As I demonstrated in chapter
4, language brokers know their family work is racially marked. In addition to crossing the
boundary of what is considered to be the “typical” childhood by speaking for parents who can’t
sufficiently represent themselves, these youth also speak Spanish or Korean—languages that are
often seen as threatening to national unity in the U.S. Moreover, their parents were—according
to these youth—treated like “children,” “stupid,” or “subhuman” for failing to learn English.
Cognizant of the multiple stigmas that their parents endure on a daily basis, many youth
engage in inclusion work to recreate their parents as “good” immigrants. The process of
inclusion work, as I will demonstrate in this chapter, entails (1) presenting their parents as the
embodiment of the American dream, (2) constructing “American” childhood as deviant, and (3)
imagining a successful future. Taken together, their efforts not only enable children of
immigrants to cope with the familial double bind—thus compelling them to confirm their family
commitments— but they also assure them that their family “sacrifices” will be ultimately
rewarded with acceptance into mainstream American society.
However, constructing their family lives as “normal” requires youth to selectively
employ the widely available cultural rhetoric regarding “good” immigrants— namely, the heroic
narrative that praises immigrants who overcome hardships through strong family ties, hard work,
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and self-sufficiency. As such, their efforts ultimately reinforce hegemonic patterns of the
racialization and a mythical “American Dream” ideology. By highlighting how difficult it is to
challenge controlling images like the ideal American family, this chapter brings attention to the
ways that larger systems of inequality, including the social exclusion of “undeserving”
immigrants, shape family relations.
Starting from the Bottom Up
In her provocative study of children of Asian immigrant entrepreneurs, Lisa Park (2005; 2008)
argues that the model minority ideology works to discipline young people who are struggling to
define themselves as “Americans.” The disciplinary nature of this myth, Park (2008)
demonstrates, is explicit in the ways these Asian children of immigrants retold their family’s
migration experiences. According to Park, their migration story sounds like this: their parents
migrated to the United States to provide better opportunities for their children. Upon arrival, their
parents encountered multiple obstacles, but through sheer determination and hard work, they
eventually achieved the American Dream. Such narratives resemble the American tale of its
national origins, in which “the nation is born with the migration of poor peasants who come to
the ‘land of opportunity’ with nothing but their determination and hard work and subsequently
‘melt into the pot’” (page 136-137). While Park’s study largely focuses on the experience of
middle-class children of immigrants, my informants come from working-class background.
Many of my informants’ families were, therefore, not making it in America. Their parents
worked long hours in low-skilled, low-paying jobs. Even so, they were not making income to
make ends meet. After all, the vast majority of my informants qualified for free or reduced lunch
programs at school. In addition to facing class inequality, their parents, especially Mexican-
Americans, also endured racialized nativism in the “land of opportunity.” In this context, I have
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expected my informants to provide a starkly different narrative about their parents’ migration
journeys, one that highlight structural inequalities. To my surprise, however, the vast majority of
working-class language brokers, regardless of their ethnic background, used their parents’
migration story to boost the “American tale.” Why do they embrace the notion of meritocracy
and untrammeled individualism when their “hard working” parents are not “making it” in the
United States?
In retelling their parents’ migration story, these children of immigrants at the margin are
expressing their desire to be fully included in the “American narrative” as well as their
frustrations resulting from exclusionary narratives. Whether or not their parents were achieving
American dream, it was important for these children to draw upon the popular narrative of
“America as a nation of immigrants” to recreate their parents’ migration story to fit this national
tale because their parents were treated like “children,” “stupid” or “subhuman” in public spaces
for not fully assimilating into the mainstream American society. And, not surprisingly,
recreating their parents’ experiences to “fit” the morality tale of “good” immigrants was even
more pressing for Mexican Americans who were seen as “bad” immigrants.
Because all my informants were either born or raised in the United States, they did not
always know how and why their parents migrated to the United States. Even so, the vast majority
of young people that I talked to repeatedly said that it was their parents’ homeland conditions
such as poverty or class discrimination that ultimately pushed them out. Paulina, a 16-year old
Mexican youth, was born and raised in Los Angeles. Consequently, when I asked her why her
parents migrated to the United States, she became quite uncomfortable discussing the story that
she does not know:
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That is a good question because I do not really know that. One thing that I do know is
that my Mom was 29 when she came to the U.S. To me that seems kind of late, if you’ve
been living somewhere for 29 years, you have your whole life there. You have all of your
friends and family where ever you’re living when you’re’ 29. So, honestly, I don’t know.
I now wonder why she decided to come here, I’m sure it was something significant, I
should probably ask her one of these days.
Even though Paulina did not know why her mother decided to migrate to the U.S., Paulina
imagined Mexico to be “kind of poor,” and was quick to tell me her mother’s life in Mexico was
extremely difficult, thus pushing her to come to the U.S for her children:
I’ve never been to Mexico, but when I envision Mexico I envision
everyone living in house made of mud (she laughs). I envision cactuses
everywhere…and everyone is kind of poor. I don’t really know what to
say. I know Mexico is different throughout the country. There are some
places that are made out of clay and other places that are more village-like.
It’s a hard question to ask me because all I really know is what my Mother
has told me. The U.S definitely seems better than Mexico, I can tell you
that much. I think part of the reason why I say this is because I know my
mom had a hard time in Mexico. Like, my grandma died when my mom
was two years old. My mom was the 8th kid out of 10. Her mom died
while she was giving birth. So, my mom’s aunt raised my mom, but she
hated that lady because she would beat her a lot and did not feed her. She
dropped out of school when she was 9th grade, because she was poor and
schools in Mexico are just bad. Her older brother would steal form the
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neighborhood he lived in to support my mom and his other family. Her
brother was considered an “RC” which was short for “ratero conocido”
which just means he was a Wanted Thief. One time he was stealing from a
place, and someone shot him and killed him. He was 26 when he was
shot. So, my mom has these bad memories about Mexico and doesn’t want
to go back home…. When she was pregnant with my eldest brother, she
decided to come to America, because she didn’t want us to go through the
hardships that she faced.
Jinho—a Korean youth who came to Los Angeles at age six—provided a similar response to my
question about his parents’ migration background. Like Paulina, he had very limited memories of
his ancestral homeland. Therefore, like many children of immigrants, Jinho used objects like
snow, river, or roads to talk about conditions “back home.” He said, “All I remember is playing
with my brother in this small street and going to han gang (river in Seoul) with my family, and
oh, I remember seeing snow for the first time when I was kid which was pretty exciting.” Yet,
most children of immigrants had one or two stories that they heard from their parents that almost
always touched on the theme of their hardships. They then pieced these limited information
together and used them to explain why their parents had no choice but to migrate to the United
States for their children. This was clearly demonstrated by the following statement made by
Jinho.
Jinho: Honestly, I have no recollection of what Korea was back then and
why my parents came here. All I know is that my parents came
from a poor background they weren’t born with a silver spoon in
their mouths. They never had that glamorous life. You know.
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They were raised in post-Korean war, where hardship, hunger and
death were all around them… It was the real deal. They were from
Seoul working in a small restaurant. They honestly knew they
didn’t want to live in Korea with the whole economy turning into a
shit hole and they wanted to move to the states so for years they
saved up money. It was always their dream to live somewhere, but
Korea. So one day after having saved up enough money they
decided to fly to the states to start a new life for me.
HY: How old are your parents?
Jinho: My mom is 42 and my dad is 43.
HY: Did your parents tell you about the Korean War?
Jinho: No, I learned it from what’s that famous Korean movie called?
Jinho’s parents were born almost twenty years after the Korean War. He also learned about the
Korean War in one of the popular Korean movies, “the Brotherhood of War,” which revolves
around battlefields, deaths, and hunger.
Hanna, who spent some time in Korea as a child, similarly said that Korea was “not the
best place for poor people.” Her mother worked at a restaurant as a cook and on the weekend,
she worked at a car wash place. Hanna emphasized that their parents were “well off” when she
was born, but after her father got into a big car accident, he was not able to walk and thus could
not provide for her family. Because she lived as both “upper-middle class and working-class in
Korea,” she knew that class was an important dimension in “how Koreans judge others.”
Disapproving “people in Korea,” she said, “They look down on poor people.” I asked her to give
me an example:
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I was really young, like only six years old when they migrated here, so I
am not sure what was going on. But, I know that my parents could not
send us to preschool because they didn’t have money, so when they were
out working, my brother and I would just play soccer and basketball, and
just play with anything we could just grab like a wood stick. I didn’t
know this, but later my brother told me that the landlord got really mad
because we were making noise all the time and threatened to kick us out…
so, yeah, my parents decided to come to America, you know land of
opportunity, to provide better life for us. My mom did not want us to
grow up in a place where people judge others based on how poor they are.
Like many other children of immigrants, Hanna did not ask her parents about their migration
experiences. Although Hanna’s memory of Korea is limited to playing ball with her brother
when her parents were out working, she was quick to claim that her parents “saw no hope living
in Korea.” According to her story, it was through migrating to the land of opportunity that their
family was rescued from poverty.
After sharing their parents’ hardships back home, many children of immigrants
reconstructed their parents as “risk-takers.” For example, Hector, a 19-year-old Mexican-
American, who had previously interviewed his mother for a school project, knew a lot about her
parents’ journey to the “North”:
My parents came over illegally and undocumented. I heard that borders
were more accessible and easier to cross twenty years ago. My dad paid
someone to pass the border and they actually walked. My mom said that
she was very excited to go to the “North.” She was wearing her best
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clothing and brought expensive things with her, but all of her stuff was
stolen. She hid behind some bushes at night and I am sure it was very
uncomfortable to do that wearing her big puffy dress (shakes his head and
laughs). Then she ran in the morning without eating or drinking. My
mom was carrying my older sister with her high heels. Can you believe it?
(He laughs again) Anyways, once they got to San Ysidro, our uncle picked
them up. She then was so happy to eat McDonalds. She still loves
McDonalds. There were 5 people total. My parents, my sister, and my
two brothers. I was not born yet… I realized that she was a risk-taker. She
faced her fears and took chances.
Unlike Hector who presented his mother as risk-taker, the vast majority of interviewees
presented their fathers as someone who risked their lives for the family and linked these
“courageous” actions as masculine. This was suggested by Enrique, an undocumented Mexican
youth, who “crossed the border” with his father at age 7: “My father crossed over to the United
States to change our lives in a positive way and to provide a better life for his family.” Or in the
word of another Mexican youth, Victoria, “I am very proud of my dad. He is a brave man and I
look up to him. He made the decision to cross the border. He had nothing but his clothes on his
back, and struggled to become something in life.”
Perhaps because crossing border is connected with illegality, these youth tried to redefine
this behavior and action to fit the American narrative. Recreating their parents, especially their
father, as a courageous people, these young people made it clear that the act of migrating to the
“north” was an achievement, not a criminal action. For this reason, as Christine said, “Mexican
people are just as determined as other ordinary citizens. Whether they come single or come with
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significant other, or immediate family, their reasons are all the same. No matter where they come
from, they strive for better life, a stable home, and American Dream.” Christine then compared
those who make it to the north with others who failed: “It is truly sad to learn that some people
strive for the American Dream, but never actually make it over to our country, land of the free.
They get arrested or sometimes die.” After pausing for a bit, Christine continued, “but my
parents made it.”
Even as their language brokering narratives revealed the multiple social inequalities their
parents faced in the U.S., nearly all my informants did not want to explicitly discuss the
hardships their parents faced when moving to the U.S. Instead, they emphasized how hard their
parents worked in a new land and talked at length about their parents’ achievements. Sam, who
migrated to Los Angeles on a travel visa at age 7, shared his family’s experiences after
immigrating to Los Angeles:
Sam: We came here on a travel visa. My dad wanted to start a business
and achieve that American dream and give his children that
education. My dad grew up in a rural area. He was like a farmer,
grew up under the mountain and something like that. It’s pretty
cool. And, my mom’s parents passed away when she was a
teenager so she had to take care of her four siblings, so she had a
tough life. One of her older sisters was disabled, and could not
work. So, when I think of Korea, I think of this country side,
because I remember visiting my grandparents when I was really
young. I don’t know…. First couple years were the hardest for my
parents. We only knew my dad’s friend. He was going to pick us
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up at the airport, but he didn’t show up. He ran away with all our
money.
HY: “That’s crazy! So, where did you stay after you came here?”
Sam: “Yeah, it was really crazy. So, we had nothing, and we went to
church and they helped us.”
HY: “How did your family make ends meet?”
Sam: “My whole family did some janitorial work. I couldn’t work
because I was young, so I would just always help my parents. But,
my dad eventually opened up a taekwondo place in Koreatown.
We are doing okay now. [He then starts talking about the martial
arts business for a while].
Despite saying he does not really remember about life in Korea, Sam spoke at length
about the hardships that their parents faced before migrating to the United States based on
his limited information. However, even with repeated probing, he only provided brief
answers when explaining what happened after he migrated. Rather than discussing his
family’s struggles, he instead moves on to discuss the “success” part of their story. His
father struggled in Korea and then lost everything after arriving to the U.S.; opening a
martial arts studio was a big accomplishment. Perhaps mirroring his family’s outlook, he
explained, “My parents did not hold on to that past. They moved on.”
Janet, 16-year-old Mexican-American youth, also quickly mentioned her parents’
struggles before moving onto their achievements:
When they got here, they struggled so much. Being Mexicans, it’s
amazing that they were able to make something of themselves. Not many
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people are capable of doing that. They faced a lot of discrimination but it
motivated them to keep moving forward. They have a lot of courage to
leave their home country to come here and go through many hardships and
maintain their jobs. Yeah, so they are very grateful to be here. Yeah, it’s
inspiring.
Janet, whose parents worked in the warehouse, clearly recognized that Mexican-
Americans are often seen as a group of people who can’t “make something of
themselves.” To a certain extent, she seemed to buy into this stereotype. Yet, she also
implied that discrimination prevents Mexican Americans to come out ahead. She then
presented her parents as exceptional, forward-moving, and grateful individuals who
overcame hardships.
Finally, many interviewees said that because their parents overcame multiple
barriers, they can do the same. Isabella knew that “people think Mexicans don’t belong
in this country.” Isabella was the only person in her family to have the U.S. citizenship
because she was born here. After his older brother moved out of the house, she became
the designated translator. Isabella repeatedly said that she appreciated her brothers who
taught her how to speak English and Spanish growing up while shouldering “lots of
family responsibilities.” She believed that gender played a role in how her parents raised
three children; she was a bit more “sheltered” while her brothers “always worked for the
family and go out and stay out for a lot longer than [she] could.” Her two brothers never
graduated from college “because they had to work ever since they were young and do
not have paper.” Isabella said:
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I was brought up differently. I was brought up to strive for the best, because I am
an American-born U.S. citizen. I have just as much opportunities as any other
person in this country to achieve anything that I dream to do. I would think that
is why my parents worked so hard to make me well educated so that I could take
advantage of all the opportunities we would come across, and not lose it by being
ill-mannered or unprepared. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, but I never
lacked a single thing. I would say I lived a cushioned life-style. Except that I
didn’t have all the things that my friends had, which included toys and handheld
video games, but I always had a plate of food in my table and cable to watch…if
they made it why can I?
Santiago, a Mexican youth, was the only interviewee who told me that his parents are
more Americanized than him. Given that Santiago was born and raised in Los Angeles, I
was surprised by his answer and repeated my question: “did you say your parents are
more Americanized?” Santiago continued: “Yes, because my parents truly live the
American way. They worked for everything they have. Nothing in this world comes
easy. What American stands for, home of the brave. My parents really represent that
idea and they taught me how to overcome hardships.” According to Seo-yeon, a child of
Korean immigrants, her parents’ struggle paid off at the end, since their children are now
living in the “land of opportunities”:
My story isn’t as bad as everyone else’s. It has a happy ending and more
importantly, I believe that my parents are true testament of hard work paying off.
Thinking about what my dad did when he came to America, like he took his
whole life savings and took all these risks to come here. He allowed us to have a
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better future, so that we could learn English. You know. He gave us a better life
in the land of opportunities. I don’t know where my life would have been if I
didn’t come here. America represents the idea of freedom and opportunities. It’s
different from most other places, you have the chance to be whoever you want. It
just takes passion and hard work.
Echoing Seo-yeon, Jennifer, a Mexican-American youth used her parents’
migration story to claim that anyone can make something of their life, regardless of their
ethnic background and socioeconomic status. Since Jennifer’s parents who started with
nothing made it and gave their children “everything,” she had no “excuse” to fail in this
new land.
Both my parents migrated here several times. They came though the dessert,
used family visas, and in a semi truck. My parents worked in the fields picking
strawberries, oranges, avocados, and cleaning offices. My dad has no education
background, he works in construction and everything he knows is because of
training and classes they give him. He hardly speaks English, but is trying to
learn everyday. My mom cleans houses, she did go to school, but didn’t finish,
the highest-grade level she finished was 10th grade. My brother and I were both
born here, our upbringing was different from other Mexican kids, yes we were
disciplined in many ways and enforced many rules, but we were fortunate
enough that we had many privileges that others didn’t. My parents wanted us to
do well in school. This was because my dad always wanted to give us what he
never had….I feel like I am so much better off than my parents and if I just try
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hard enough, I can make it. I have no excuse, because my parents did it and gave
us everything that we need.
***
If we take my informants’ narratives as absolute truths, their narratives of immigration
experiences appear to echo key themes developed by scholars who examine whether and how
working-class immigrants of color assimilate into melting pot America. Pushed by the poverty
and pulled by the idea behind “land of opportunity,” post-1965 immigrants face multiple
obstacles on the path towards incorporation. Depending on how we measure success, even those
who start from the bottom, like my informants’ parents, often assimilate into the mainstream
America.
It is tempting to conclude that these young people, like most Americans, are just products
of a neoliberal society, where free market ideology reduces human dignity into individualism.
While this statement is not entirely incorrect, one must also consider the family’s social position
in the U.S. Their parents are constantly depicted as “poor” and “undeserving” immigrants.
Because the stakes are high and their language brokering responsibilities are difficult, the
children I interviewed use their family’s migration stories as a form of inclusion work. Rather
than being critical of broader patterns of racism or classism in the United States, language
brokers turn their marginality into a perceived asset in hopes of being accepted into the
mainstream America.
Constructing “American” Childhood as Deviant
In addition to having combated the image of “bad” immigrants by presenting their parents as
champions of the American dream, many language brokers also accomplished inclusion work by
constructing the “American childhood” as deviant. Instead of creating a moral distinction
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between themselves and their families, these youths have drawn boundaries between themselves
and other white middle-class kids who “depend” on, but later “abandon,” their parents. They
repeatedly used their traditional culture—one that they are not entirely familiar with—to
condemn “American children” whom they perceived to be sheltered, dependent, spoiled, and
lazy. On the surface, it might seem as if these youths actively criticized whiteness and took the
opposite position of the “mainstream” American, who values individualism and top-down
intergenerational relations. Yet, as I listened to these youths, it became clear that their intention
was not simply to attack white, middle-class kids; they also accentuated the “proper” family
values that many Americans endorse, namely, unconditional love and strong emotional ties
between family members. These boundaries, therefore, enabled these youth to offset the widely
held stigma of poor and “inassimilable” families and position their family as morally superior in
comparison to other families. However, because they draw on a widely available rhetoric about
cultural different to counter dominant norms, these youth inevitably constructed and
essentialized their own “traditions” as a uniform entity. In other words, their strategy for coping
with stigma ultimately recreated the same kind of essentialized stereotypes in which “us” versus
“them” are constructed to begin with.
Children of immigrants were cognizant of how their family lives deviated from the lives
of the “normal American family,” which is implicitly assumed to be a White middle-class family
(Espiritu 2003; Park 2005; Pyke 2000). For example, Francisca, a freshman in college,
accompanied her mother to clean houses in wealthy neighborhoods. As a result of her limited
interactions with middle-class families, the defining feature of the “American” family for
Francisca was wealth. Claiming that “American” children are too “sheltered,” and “pampered”
Francisca shared:
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American children never have to work hard. They have everything. That’s not very
good. Then they don’t develop any motivation to succeed in life. Their parents do
everything for them and send them to college. But, I am saving money to pay for my
own tuition.
When I asked Jacob, a Mexican American youth what their parents do for living, he laughed and
said, “Guess.” I shook my head. Jacob then said: “My mom is a cleaning lady and my dad is
gardener. Typical Mexican jobs! My sisters translate for her mother and me and my father take
care of other people’s yards.” Having to interact frequently with white clients in upper-middle
class suburbs, Jacob viewed all whites as patronizing people. He said:
White people always order my dad around. They are mean. They think that we are
supposed to do everything they told us to do…They look down on all of other races.
They think their shit doesn’t stink. Excuse my language, but really, everyone should be
accepted for who they are in this country. Your race, the color of your skin, the way we
talk, shouldn’t be a factor. But, white people think they have the power. They teach their
kids just study and let Mexicans cut your grass.
As reflected in Jacob’s narrative, Mexican-Americans repeatedly talked about exploitation at
work. In fact, such narratives were more common in my interviews with Mexican Americans in
comparison to Korean Americans, revealing the historical role of Mexicans as subordinate
service workers. Translating at their parents’ work places was difficult to begin with since many
employers relied on children to complain about the quality of work performed by their parents.
Because these employers paid for the services, they seemed to sometimes felt entitled to “order”
their employees around. Moreover, because many of these employers were whites living in
wealthy neighborhoods, this experience of interacting with white employers fed into their
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narratives: white people, according to youth like Jacob, are mean, racist, selfish, and entitled.
Although Jacob was conscious of how unequal power operates in his life, he believed that having
“it so easy” was not an advantage. He continued:
Jacob: White kids have it so easy, but that’s gonna hurt them in the long run. They are
gonna grow up thinking things would just fall into place for them… when I realized that
American means white skinned, parents born and raised in America, that’s when I
thought that I would much rather be full on Hispanic, and not be so spoiled. I’d rather
work for everything and anything than to have my parents hand things down for me all
the time.
HY: What do you mean by hand things down? What do white people give to their kids?
Jacob: I mean everything is given to white kids. Their parents have a certain amount of
money in their bank account, and they drive classic cars and they give that to their kids,
like everything is passed down from generation to generation. They get pampered, so
they don’t have to pay rent, they don’t have to translate for their parents, and do chores
like us…My parents are teaching me like, I can be rich on my own and still be a
Hispanic.
Do-hyeon, a 20-year old Korean grew up in a low-income neighborhood in Los Angeles. Yet,
his parents changed the address to their friend’s house in Beverly Hills. As a result, he attended
a high school with many “rich white kids.” Do-hyeon used to envy white kids because their
parents were a lot more “involved” while his parents were “absent for the most part.” A son of a
taxi driver and a waitress, Do-hyeon did not get to see his parents until late at night. Although he
once thought they were “bad parents,” he now “grew out of it.” As he got “older and wiser,” he
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realized that they “did everything they could to provide for our family.” Do-hyeon compared his
parents with “other white parents”:
My parents seem unorthodox, but they are actually very traditional. My father is the rock
of the family. My mother is an extremely sharp-witted, yet caring woman who balances
out my father. My parents are what you can call old school Korean where strict cultural
norms were enforced. My father never really talked to us. He would not hesitate to dish
out severe corporal punishment to my brother and me whenever we got into trouble or
performed poorly at school. They emphasized the need for higher education, even though
they could not come to our school events. Now, looking back, I think it is better this way.
White parents provide comfort for their children. They are given too much freedom and
find strictness as a form of abuse. Children of Asian immigrants are held to higher
expectations and have more responsibilities. I came to truly accept and appreciate my
parents.
I asked Do-hyeon if he wants to be reborn as Korean-American. “Yes, I would rather be who I
am today because if I say that I wish I were white, because they have everything, I feel like I
would be selling my soul.”
Unlike Do-hyeon, Sam, a 16-year old Korean youth, did not frequently interact with
white kids. He had many Mexican friends and believed that their family lives are similar to his
own. “My best friend, Pedro. His parents are just like my parents. They are friendly and Pedro is
very close to his parents. His mom can make the best tamale in the world,” he told me with a big
smile. Sam, however, did not think that “American” kids have the similar family lives as him.
Referring to the image of “American” family that he saw in television, he claimed:
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You know American parents, they always give, give, give, and children never give back.
They soak up all their parents’ money and send them to senior housing… But, we are
very close to each other. So, in some ways, there are a lot of Korean morals and values
that this translating reminds me of, like respecting our parents.
Nikki, a 17 year-old “proud Mexican-American,” had dark skin, thick jet black curly hair,
and freckles on her cheeks. Growing up in “Latino neighborhood,” Nikki had always felt
“different” and “uncomfortable” with her appearance. She had to deal with other
Mexican kids who “disapproved” of her “Mexican identity” because she “looked Black.”
When her family went out to the public, people constantly stared at her, causing her to
become “very insecure and shy girl.” Learning Spanish and translating for her parents
was important for her because it was one way to “prove [her] Mexican-side.” She
claimed: “I am Latina, hundred percent Mexican American. I grew up in a Mexican
household, speak Spanish. I am hardworking and loves to party.” Nikki then told me that
she is keenly aware of negative stereotypes about Mexicans: “Americans might have a
negative view on how we raise our kids, like we have too many kids and we don’t give
them the right education. We lack ambition blah blah blah (she rolls her eyes).” I asked
her why she thinks other people say that about Mexican families:
Because they don’t know about us. They are wrong and stupid. Mexicans are culturally
oriented and also very traditional as a society. And we do things traditional way. We raise
our kids in a traditional way like spanking them when we need to and pulling their ears
(she laughs). But, that’s how Americans should raise their kids. Like like, they have to
discipline their kids. My parents taught and raised her daughters this way. They
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disciplined us, but they put us all before themselves and worked day in and day out, long
nights to maintain us and keep a roof over our head.

By reconstructing American children as “selfish” and rude, many youth not only attempted to
cultivate a sense of membership in their community but also tried to normalize their childhood.
Additionally, there were a good number of youth, especially elder children, who reported
that their co-ethnics or siblings were far too Americanized and thus irresponsible and spoiled.
Minju, 17 years old at the time of her interview, had moved to Los Angeles from Korea at age 7
and immediately became her family’s designated translator. This responsibility made sense at the
time; her younger brother was only 5 when her family immigrated to the U.S. and was more
introverted than Minju. “He didn’t talk to anyone in his class for a long time,” Minju told me.
When his brother entered the middle school, however, he became quite “rebellious” and
depended on his parents for “everything.” Agreeing with her parents, who viewed her brother’s
case as the classic story of Amercanization gone wrong, Minju said:
When he went to middle school, my brother became really rebellious. He would hang out
with gangsters in the neighborhood. He would skip school never did good in his grade.
He was like a D, average student. And I was always like the student of the month. My
parents never asked him for help cuz they were afraid that they would yell at them. He
was kind of violent when he was growing up. Now, he can’t do anything by himself,
because I was the one who always did the translation for my mom and my brother! He
doesn’t ask me for help because he knows that I won’t do it for him. So, he asks my mom
and then of course, my mom would ask me for help. I just feel like he became one of
those American kids that rely on parents for everything.
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Like many language brokers, Bora, an 18-year old girl, not only translated for her parents, but
regularly took care of her brother and sister. An eldest child of Korean immigrants, she believed
that her parents raised her “to be more independent” and her younger siblings to be more
“dependent”: “My parents coddle my siblings. They overprotect them.”
I think it’s because I am the olderst. Also, for some reason, my siblings took
longer to learn English, but by the time they graduated from middle school,
they could not really speak Korean. They lost it…I do everything on my own.
I don’t need to ask for help. But, with my brother and sister, they have to go
to my parents or me to ask for help. For example, I worked since I was 16. I
sometimes gave them money. They can’t do that. It’s harder for them
because they wait for the opportunities to come to them. They don’t seek out,
but I seek opportunities. That’s the difference. We were raised differently.
During the course of interview, Bora said that she felt disconnected with her youngest
sister in high school. Her sister hung out with “white-washed” Koreans or whites and “wanted to
become like them.” Bora believed that her sister was shamed of Korean culture and “became
embarrassed of who she was and of her own parents.” Bora was really shocked when she found
out her sister began to lie to her friends about where she lived. Bora’s family lived in “poorer
part of Koreatown,” but her sister told her friends that she lived in Burbank: “she never invited
her friends over to the house. I wondered why, but it was because her friends thought she lived in
a nice house in Burbank. I know that it broke my parents’ heart to see her daughter to become
this wannabe white.” Nonetheless, Bora emphasized with her younger sister. Bora said: “It’s
because kids used to pick on my sister when she was learning English in elementary school. It
wasn’t a popular trend to be bilingual back them.”
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But, now, she regrets, because she looks Korean even if she denies it. And, everyone
comes up to her and speaks to her in Korean and she doesn’t really understand. So, that’s
what she gets for not sticking to her roots, I guess. Because I am the oldest, I feel
responsible to help her learn Korean. I like to quiz her by asking her questions in Korean
or whenever she speaks to me English, I go, “Mwuh?” [What in Korean] and always
respond to her in Korean.
In the case of boys, translating for their parents and providing for their families not only helped
them uphold their “tradition,” but these responsibilities also enabled them to assert masculinity.
Josh, a 19 year-old Mexican language broker who grew up with a single mother and two siblings,
told me that because he was the “man of the house,” he matured faster than his siblings who
were now spoiled as a result of “becoming American too quickly.” Claiming that he is more
“Mexican” then his siblings, Jose shared:
My mom always told me, “Josh, you are the man of the house” so there was
more pressure on me. My sister and brother are a bit spoiled like other typical
American kids, because they were like just having fun and didn’t care about
what was going in our family. That was more acceptable for them.
Felipe, another 19-year old Mexican language broker grew up with both parents, but believed
that he had a closer relationship with his father. He worked alongside his father, a “handyman”
and enjoyed “spending time with him and learning how to paint houses.” Felipe repeatedly
compared his life with his younger sister and told me that his “immature” and “innocent” sister is
not as dedicated to her family. Felipe, however, understood why: her sister “should not work at a
young age “because women are more easily abused while men can defend themselves and fight.”
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He then said: “I am a male, the second man of the house. This is Mexican tradition. So every
responsibility that my dad has, I have. Like, taking care of the family, paying bill, making sure
that everyone has been fed.”
Likewise, many youth repeatedly commented that they were more mature because unlike
their assimilated siblings, they upheld Korean or Mexican traditions of helping their family
members. By constructing “American” children or Americanized siblings as spoiled or immature
and not as dedicated to their family as their “Mexican” or “Korean” immigrant counterparts, a
good number of working-class children of immigrants tried to cope with the familial double
bind.
Although many youth used their “traditional” ethnic culture to construct themselves as
hardworking, “masculine” or family-oriented, the vast majority, who were born in the U.S., had
limited knowledge of their homeland. Central sources of information on their “traditional”
culture, therefore, originated from stories they heard from their parents. For example, Antonio, a
15 year old youth who was born in Los Angeles and had never visited Mexico, repeated her
mother’s childhood experiences when I asked him a rather cynical question: “How do you know
that Mexican culture values helping their family?” After pausing for few seconds, Antonio
declared, “Oh, I know why!” and then continued: “My mom said that she always helped my
grandfather back home whenever he needed her help. Like she will drop everything and helped
him. She started working ever since she was 10 and gave all her money to her family.”
Chulmin, a Korean youth, repeated a similar story about what happened in Korea based
on his father’s story. Unlike most language brokers, Chulmin felt that his father was “really
demanding,” and wished that his father was more “emotionally affectionate.” During his
interview, he told me about many incidents in which his father “ordered” him around. For
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example, his father would tell him, “we are going to DMV after school and that’s it.” Though
Chulmin was upset and wished that his father would ask him rather than demanding his service,
for the most part, he translated for him without complaint. When I asked him why he didn’t let
his father know how he really felt, he responded:
My dad told me that my grandpa was demanding. You know in Korea, fathers are like
the dictators and children have to obey. My father was the product of that society. He
would just obey and never challenge his father.
Chulmin recognized that there was discrepancy between how he should feel and how he actually
feels. Although our two-hour conversation centered on how he wished that his father is more
grateful for his translation work, Chulmin made efforts to change his feelings of resentment by
relying on his father’s stories. Ultimately, he believed that all Korean fathers are authoritarians
and that his childhood was not so different from other youth who grew up in Korean households.
Yet what these children heard from their parents did not reflect Mexican or Korean
culture in its entirety. Though these youth interpreted their parents’ story as “Mexican” or
“Korean” stories, in reality, their parents’ narratives reflect more about their social class
background or selective and subjective memories than “traditional” culture. Moreover, as
demonstrated, their daily routine and family lives were shaped by the structure of inequalities in
the U.S, more so than their parents’ homeland culture.
Furthermore, some of the television-based images of “American families” are far from
accurate. Family scholars have long argued that the typical “American” family with a
breadwinning father and a stay-at-home mother is no longer the norm in the U.S (Coontz 1992,
2000; Stacey 1996). Also, what these youth are referring to as the normal “American” family is
distinctly white and middle-class; American kids, in their views, go to college and soak up their
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parents’ money. In addition, researchers consistently demonstrate that eldercare
“responsibilities” in the U.S disproportionally fall on family members, rather than paid providers
(Abel, 1991).
Yet, as mythical as they were, these popular ideas about the “American” family, which
derived from youth’s limited interactions with White middle class families and TV shows,
formed the powerful basis against which these youth from working-class immigrant families
constructed their own family as “normal,” if not superior. Knowing that what they do for parents
must be explained in a society where children are seen as “priceless and innocent objects” (Pugh
2014; Thorne 1987; Zelizer 1985) and having to perform “adult responsibilities” out of practical
necessities, youth selected pieces of “traditional” culture and an idea of “American” families at
their disposal to present themselves and their families in a positive light. In other words, the
criticisms about foreignness created a defense dilemma for these children at the margin, pressing
them to reconstruct the dominant form of “American childhood” as deficient and to embrace
their alleged foreignness. Such inclusion work, therefore, reveal their struggle for full inclusion
of differences when they had little to claim by way of upholding a normalized version of
“American family.” While these youths’ efforts helped them to justify why they shouldered
language brokering work and present their families as “normal,” the inclusion work of relying on
their cultural differences in return constructed their tradition and culture as static, ignoring the
realities of differentiation based on racial, class, and generational status.
Imagining Successful Future
Finally, many youth in this study reconcile the double bind by imagining a successful future.
When asked about the lessons that they’ve learned from helping their parents, working-class
children of immigrants repeatedly told me that language brokering work would make them
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independent and self-sufficient. Katie, a Korean high school student, for example, talked about
translating for her father, who was carrying a large amount of debt as a result of closing his
“failed” small business. Confiding that she saw a lot of “mistakes” that her parents have made,
Katie told me: “I couldn’t believe the interest rate that they were paying every month. I know
that they were struggling, but I was thinking, what were they thinking? Do they think that credit
cards are like free money from the heaven?” Even though Katie’s situation was potentially
distressing, she also tried to “feel optimistic” and said: “I am learning things through my parents’
mistakes so much faster so it would help me become much more independent than other kids.”
Seo-yeon, who initially said that America represents the idea of opportunity and freedom,
similarly said, “I’ve realized that there are many consequences when my parents cannot keep up
with payments, like all these late fees you know?” Instead of resenting her parents, however,
Seo-yeon claimed, “But, they are always working. Their absence was the prime example of my
parents sacrificing for their kids, for their family. If I didn’t get a chance to translate for my
parents, it wouldn’t have pushed me to want to go to college. Now I know that it is important to
be educated so I don’t have to work all the time.” Chul-min, another Korean youth similarly
argued: “the fact that I had a lot of stuff on shoulder, to translate, to make sure everything was
done correctly, it made me more responsible. If it wasn’t for that, if I had no pressure, I would be
like my siblings, like I would be careless.”
For the most part, both Korean and Mexican Americans accentuated socially valued skills
such self-sufficiency, progress, and entrepreneurial individualism to claim that these
characteristics would eventually make them productive citizens. Yet, in comparison to Korean
Americans, Mexican-Americans, who are widely casted as inassimilable underclass (Chavez,
2001), had to make more strategic efforts to normalize their childhood. Alejandro, a 19 year-old
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youth said that “racism is everyday and lifelong problem” that he got “used to.” Grew up in
Campton, Alejandro had a lot of black friends, but realized that whenever he hung out with them,
police just stop and searched them. Because Alejandro lived with his single mother, he had very
limited memories of his father; one of these memories was learning how to roller skate from his
dad. Yet, every time he thought of his father, he recalled this “random guy” who told his dad,
“don’t waste your time teaching him how to roller stake. Teach him how to pick strawberries.”
Raising his voice, Alejandro told me, “My dad was working in construction at the time. He does
not work in the field. So he was just being racist. I don’t even get to spend that much time with
my dad cause my parents got a divorce, so this guy ruined it.” He also recalled his high school
teacher, “this white lady named Mrs. Washington,” who singled out her Mexican students and
sent them to “dream act workshop” during class time, “because she thought all Mexicans are
illegal, although [he] was born in the U.S.” Alejandro also encountered some people who bluntly
“said that Latino parents just let their kids be out in the street and that their parents don’t raise
them right. They think all Mexicans turn out be gangs and smoking because their mom has no
control of them and that they don’t have a dad in their life.” While these stereotypes are
“discouraging,” they sometimes motivated Alejandro to look after his mom and work harder:
Sometimes it is discouraging when people say that I will not be anyone important
because my mom is poor and she can’t speak English. But, I try not to let it get down. I
don’t agree with this statement, like yeah my mom is a single parent, and yes my parents
did not go to college. Yes, they struggle to live up to that American fame, and yes I had
to help my mom with everything. But, I did not control her or anything, because she is
still strict with me. I also think this translating thing is good thing because I had to help
my mom instead of hanging out with the wrong friends and end up going down the wrong
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path. I am more independent than other people because I helped my mom ever since I
was young. I don’t ask for help. Just because I came from a low income home, I mean
these factors like being poor and helping parents should be overall reason for not giving
up in becoming someone. I feel that all that racism me and my mom experienced in life
gave me a better motivation to make something of myself and level up in life. I don’t
want to be known as that minority, I want to be something in life. I want to prove to
people and show them that my mom’s struggle made an impact on my life. And I know
that all the skills that I gained from translating will help me and my mom get away from
this poverty life. Racism is a daily problem that we all, as humans, go through. Racism is
not a new thing that just developed. However, you just have to get over it.
Another youth, Diego, a son of a Mexican domestic worker, said that his mother “babysat” for a
White family in the suburbs. Because his mother’s time was primarily devoted to taking care of
another family’s baby, Diego yearned for quality time with his mother. During the course of his
interview, however, Diego emphasized that he understood that his mother had to “work for [his]
family” and “put food on the table.” He then said: “I am very independent because of my
parents. I mean they didn’t want me to always dependent on them. They wanted me to learn for
myself.” Although it was structural constraints, not Diego’s mother’s choice, that pushed her to
“depend” on her son, Diego, like many other children of immigrants in this study, struggled to
present his mother as someone who “passed down” the important qualities necessary in America
and attempted to turn marginality into a perceived asset.
Emilia was attending a community college when I interviewed her. As the first
person going to college in her family, she was very proud of her achievement. “I did it
by myself, because when it comes to school, I was not able to ask my parents. They just
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know that I am in school,” she claimed. When I asked her if there is anything she wants
to change about her family, she said, “I would want my parents to be more
knowledgeable about what’s going in my school. Then they would know that I can’t
always help out. But, in a way it is understandable considering they didn’t get to go to
college. So, it’s not expected, but for me, it just gives me the motivation to make sure
that I am more proactive in my child’s life. I became very self-reliant and responsible
because I had to do everything by myself, so I think I can help my children later on.”
Like many Mexican American youth, Gael, an 18-year old youth, was also very
cognizant about the “negative Mexican stereotypes” that cast all “Mexicans as poor, low-
educated wet-back, who have 10 kids.” Aware of such stereotypes, Gael seemed a bit hesitant
and uncomfortable telling me about his family’s financial situations in detail, especially issues
related to welfare. When I asked him what type of documents he translated for his family, he
said that he “just translate[s] medical related documents for his grandmother,” but after a pause,
he added, “And some welfare stuff for my mom.” He then quickly confided in his soft voice that
his single mother, a domestic worker with three children, “worked all the time, but was still
struggling. She had no choice, but to depend on government.” Although Gael, for the most part,
kept his answers short, perhaps implying that he did not want to talk about language brokering
work that may reveal his family’s tenuous economic position, he spoke at great length about the
lessons he learned from his responsibilities:
If I never helped my mom and grandma, I don’t think I would be as disciplined
as I am today. I think having a huge responsibility on my shoulders kind of
molded me into an independent person at a young age but that has worked to my
advantage in areas such as getting through school. Like my mom, she wasn’t a
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person I would go to for help with my homework like maybe some other
American kids can do. She never really pushed me to do well, because she is so
busy. Well, she did, but only by saying I need to work hard. But, I think in the
long run, I know that it’s only going to help me when I get a job. I already have
all these skills that companies look for.
What these children of immigrants are asserting here is that they cultivated socially valued skills
such as being disciplined, responsible, and independent as a result of their parents’ “mistakes,”
lack of involvement, limited English proficiency, and tenuous economic circumstance. By
focusing on the positive outcome that resulted from language brokering responsibilities and
relying on the shared “American values,” however, many young people in this study countered
the “bad” immigrant narrative and constructed themselves as a potentially productive member of
“mainstream” American society.
Unequal power, Exclusion work, and Continuing Familial Double Bind
Sociologists have long studied how people endeavor to project the self-image that is consistent
with how one wants to be seen by others. Hochschild (1983) argues that people often engage in
“surface acting” of displaying the “right” expressions in order to deceive others. Employed
mothers often accentuate their performances as “good” mothers to avoid being criticized for
providing their children less support (Garey 1999; Hays 1996; McDonald 2010). Gay Christians
also interpret the Bible and Christianity to fit with their sexuality (Wolkomir 2012). Working-
class white men sometimes compensate for their lower statuses by claiming they are disciplined
social members, thus drawing boundaries between them and working-class, “lazy” black people
(Lamont 2000).
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Building on this line of scholarships, I have argued that people with less power and
authority are more likely to engage in inclusion work to turn their marginality in to perceived
assets. Upper-and middle-class white men are less likely than working-class white men to draw
boundaries against the people “below” them, including blacks (Lamont 2000). Because this
group is less likely to interact with working-class blacks in their neighborhoods and workplaces,
working-class black people do not play an important role in their mental maps. Furthermore,
unlike people who are at the lower end of the social hierarchy, upper- and middle-class white
men do not feel the need to create alternative definitions of success in order to belong to
mainstream American society.
For children of immigrants who live at the intersection of multiple forms of
subordination, inclusion work is socially necessary and extremely challenging. Unlike those of
white, middle-class men— whose skin color, wealth, gender—are the typical definition of what
it means to be American— the family statuses of the children of immigrants represent what
American is not. Consequently, they negotiate their ambivalent feelings and advocate for their
inclusion in mainstream U.S. society by drawing upon widely available and popular discourses
about “good” immigrants.
First, I have demonstrated that working-class children of immigrants reconstruct their
parents as brave immigrants who left impoverished countries to provide better lives for their
families. Although these youths were born and raised in the United States and did not fully know
their parents’ migration stories, they pieced limited information together and claimed that their
parents had no choice but to leave their homelands because of poverty. For those youths with
undocumented parents, the act of crossing borders, which is seen as illegal in the United Sates,
was reinterpreted as a courageous action that was mostly taken by their “masculine” fathers.
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While the vast majority of young people said that their parents struggled in the new land, they
were quick to argue that their parents—who had started at the bottom of U.S. society—had
climbed up the social hierarchy. In this context, the children of immigrants turned their
marginality (i.e., coming from poor country, being undocumented, and struggling to make ends
meet) into perceived assets. According to their revised stories, their audacious parents privileged
the wellbeing of their families and children and held onto the American dream in a “land of
opportunities.”
Second, language brokers in this study tried to turn the negative image of “dependent
parents” into a positive affirmation by reconstructing the idea of the “American childhood” as
deviant. Although these children did not frequently interact with white, middle-class children,
they were cognizant of how their lives diverged from a so-called “American” childhood. As
such, they drew upon widely available discourses, such as the “immigrant” cultural values of
hard work and strong family ties, and condemned “American” or “Americanized” children who
were “sheltered” and “spoiled.” Unlike pampered “American kids” who later abandon their
parents, the children of immigrants, according to many informants, value work and family. In the
case of boys, helping their parents and providing for their families were means for them to assert
masculinity. Even though “American families” typically do not consist of two middle-class
parents who unconditionally provide for their dependent children, it was important for these
children of immigrants to manage stigma. By engaging in inclusion work, they presented their
“traditional” families as ones that valued collectivity and commitment to others. On the surface,
it seems as if these children’s families were starkly different from typical American families.
However, both collectivity and “traditional” family structures are valued ideologies within the
United States, as demonstrated by the American political discourses that harshly criticize the
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decline of the family. In this context, the centrality of family for these youths was used as a
means to assert their social citizenship in the United States.
Finally, the vast majority of the young people in this study imagined successful futures
for themselves. Over and over again, my informants told me that their language-brokering work,
although difficult and challenging at times, would eventually allow them to become more self-
sufficient and independent. By obtaining social mobility through their accumulated brokering
experiences, they hoped that their parents’ hard work and long-term investments would pay off.
In this context, these children are much like “good” American citizens in that they value hard
work, self-sufficiency, and independence. They believed that their future employers and
employees will wholeheartedly welcome these assets. Taken together, it seems like the families
of these youths are almost too perfect. Their first generation parents immigrated to the United
States with nothing in their hands, but managed to “make it” in the land of opportunities, valuing
hard work, collectivity, and family. Rather than needing to rely on the help of others, the second
generation overcomes hardship through their determination and self-sufficiency. All of their
values and commitments resonate perfectly with mainstream American values.
Inclusion work is a response to exclusion work. That is, youths’ struggles to normalize
their family lives must be understood in the context of exclusionary immigration practices and
racialization. These youth are cognizant of alarmist and popular image of “bad” immigrants.
They had heard more than once that their families or “foreigners” do not belong in America.
These youths also recognize that their working-class parents, who “failed” to climb the social
ladder and fully assimilate into mainstream society, are not treated as full social members of the
United States. If this is not enough, they also know that their childhood deviates from the image
of a “normal” American childhood. In search of dignity and to challenge the negative
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stereotypes about immigrants, therefore, they flipped the mythical American dream narrative,
recreated the mainstream from the margin, and presented themselves as the “good” second
generation ready to prosper in the land of opportunities. Their inclusion work, therefore, reveals
their practical circumstances, as well as their awareness of hierarchies and processes of
oppression. They also testify to the power and ubiquity of controlling images and speak to their
“probationary” status.
These strategies, however, are not without costs. Because the process of constructing
their family lives as “normal” involved selectively employing the widely available rhetoric
regarding “good” immigrants— namely, the heroic narrative that praises immigrants who
overcome hardships through strong family ties, hard work, and self-sufficiency— their efforts
ultimately reinforced the mythical “American Dream” ideology. In addition, relying on their
cultural “differences” inevitably constructed their tradition and culture as static, thus ignoring the
realities of differentiation based on racial, class, and generational status. While all my informants
come from working-class immigrant households, there are differences among these youth.
Notably, inclusion work seems more difficult for Mexican American youth since they are more
likely to be seen as the “bad” immigrants. Finally, their efforts to reconstruct their family’s
marginal position helped reinforce the boundary between “immigrant” and “American” families,
as well as relational categories of “good” and “bad” immigrants. The “deserving” immigrants,
after all, never rely on government support but instead pull themselves by their bootstraps to
obtain social mobility. Paradoxically, then, when youth at the margin tried to challenge negative
stereotypes and institutional subordination via inclusion work, they reaffirmed the very
“evaluation criteria” that symbolically excluded them from the mainstream American society in
the first place.
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Chapter 6: Learning from Children Language Brokers
The United States has long regarded itself as a nation of immigrants. As Barack Obama has
claimed, “our tradition of welcoming immigrants from around world… kept us youthful,
dynamic, and entrepreneurial. It has shaped our character as a people with limitless
possibilities— people not trapped by our past, but able to remake ourselves as we choose.”
However, under Obama’s presidency, a record number of immigrants have been detained or
deported, mostly Mexican Americans (Dreby 2009). The immigration issue has been, and
continues to be, colored in the national imagination, even as political leaders often discuss this
issue in generalized, purportedly colorblind terms. Until World War II, various immigration laws
exclusively targeted Asian Americans who were seen as “inassimilable” threats to the United
States. Although the 1965 Hart-Cellar Immigration reform law removed racial quotas on
immigration and opened the door to “all immigrants,” Congress did not expect that this law
would increase the number of Asian immigrants. Instead, this law was designed to encourage
European immigrants to come to the U.S. In the same year, the U.S. placed a quota on
immigration from Latin America for the first time. In 1990, when the nation was panicking over
both legal and illegal immigration, the Immigration Act of 1990 once again tried to promote
immigration from northwestern European countries while attempting to control Mexican
“border-crossers” or Chinese “boat people” (Chang 1999). In the popular imaginary, the
immigration “problem” is equated with Mexicans , despite the fact that many undocumented
immigrants also come from Italy, Ireland, Russia, and Poland (Chang 1999). As Los Angeles
reporter Gregory Rodriguez writes, “Latino activists bend over backward trying to cloak
undocumented Mexican migrants in the slogan “We are America,” but their Irish
[undocumented] counterparts don’t feel similarly obliged.”
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Against the backdrop of the contentious debates over immigration in media, many
researchers attempted to measure whether or not today’s children of immigrants are successfully
becoming Americans. Dubbed as one of the most important theories on children of immigrants,
segmented assimilation theory predicts that many of today’s immigrants—who do not have the
“right” skin color and resources—face downward assimilation (Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Portes
and Zhou 1993). To counter this pessimistic outcome, neo-assimilation theorists argue that
today’s second-generation immigrants significantly benefit from the “declining significance of
race” and the remaking of the American mainstream (Alba 2009; Alba and Nee 2003; Bean and
Stevens 2003; Kasinitz et al. 2008). Although these approaches can reveal the structural
inequalities that children of immigrants are up against and challenge negative stereotypes about
immigrants of color, such approach to studying children of immigrants do very little to challenge
hegemonic discourses regarding immigrants and families while obscuring unequal power
relations. Here I reiterate how my findings can help us shift our analytical lens from immigrant
family forms to dominant ideologies and hegemonic discourses that create a dilemma for
working-class children of immigrants.
First, instead of examining whether or not the assimilative gap produces intergenerational
conflicts or hinder the new second generation from obtaining social mobility, this study urges us
to examine how “private” lives of immigrant families and their daily struggles are deeply
connected with nation’s cultural visions of the appropriate family. The ideology of a “normal”
family that includes a breadwinner husband, stay-at-home wife, and dependent children has
played a powerful role in American culture. This ideology assumes that all parents, especially
mothers are available and capable of providing full social, emotional, and financial support for
their children. However, as demonstrated, this normative understanding of family renders
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working-class immigrant families, and particularly the work children do within these families
invisible. Importantly, this family “standard” also elevates white, nuclear middle-class families
above all “other” families, thereby reproducing the racial order while imparting buried sense of
inadequacy and desire among socially excluded population. This study suggests that one possible
way to destabilize white middle-class experiences as normal is to move away from the
dichotomy of independent adults and dependent children and re-imagine intergenerational
relations as bidirectional; in other words, to take seriously the ways in which immigrant parents
and children are interdependent.
Second, while assimilation approaches leave the myth of “American dream” intact, this
study reveals how the contradiction between the nation’s “official ideals of equal citizenship and
state-sanctioned forms of subordination based on class and race” (Espiritu 2003, p.212) create a
precarious defensive dilemma for children of immigrants at the margin. As children enter the
political and cultural spaces of the United States and are racialized as “bad” immigrants or
“probationary” American, this contradiction reverberates in their family lives and interactions
with public authorities, as well as in immigrant children’s verbal construction of work and
family. Hence, rather than focusing on individual integration into U.S. society and implicitly
holding children of immigrants accountable, it is crucial to expose how the contradiction
“between the nation’s promise of equal rights and its actual practice of exclusion” make people’s
lives extremely difficult.
Third, individuals do not merely internalize or reject “American” values, as assimilation
theories suggest. Rather, this study shows that children of immigrants, as a less powerful group,
have to enact a hegemonic belief of Americanness, regardless of whether they internalize such
views. For example, although children of immigrants were keenly aware of social forces that
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exclude their families from social citizenship, they did not openly contest all forms of
institutional realities. Instead, due to prevalent racialized nativism, which targets immigrants of
color based on their perceived foreignness (Sanchez 1997), children of immigrants felt pressured
to “do American” at the risk of being excluded from social citizenship. Hence, while social
citizenship “is a privilege or an assumed right for some,” for those who do not have the “right”
race or class, it is “an elusive status that requires continuous effort to establish oneself as
deserving of equal rights and opportunities” (Park 2005, p.6). In short, this study shows that
institutional hierarchies that deny social citizenship rights to immigrants make it very difficult
for children of immigrants to craft interactional strategies that do not involve some aspect of
compliance, even if immigrants do not entirely embrace “American” values.
Finally, because the assimilation paradigm uses measurements, such as economic and
educational outcomes, to predict new immigrants’ assimilative pathways, it inevitably reinforces
existing stereotypes and overlooks class differences within a racial group. Based on these
measurements, for example, scholars often find that new immigrants are not succeeding equally;
Asians are making it, whereas Mexicans are not. In contrast, I have identified how different
groups are racialized in related yet distinct ways while simultaneously analyzing the importance
of social class in structuring interactions. This study demonstrated that both Mexican- and
Korean-Americans were subjected to racialized nativism that targeted perceived “unassimilable
foreigners.” At the same time, because the racial meaning of Mexican has been connected to
working-class (Bettie 2003; Jimenez 2008), findings also show that Mexican-Americans, in
comparison to Korean-Americans, confronted more overt racial discrimination and had a hard
time normalizing their childhood. Although Korean-Americans are cast as homogenous middle-
class in the U.S., this stereotype generates hidden injury of class. Thus, my findings highlight the
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importance of exposing the shared lives of people at the margin, while identifying how different
racial groups in the U.S. experience distinct types of racism.
Now that I have discussed how my study can make a theoretical intervention to studying
children of immigrants, let me propose practical ways to make working-class language brokers’
lives more livable. There are ways to increase social and institutional support for language
brokers. We can also measure different outcomes to undo existing stratification and expand the
definition of humanity.
Increasing Social and Institutional Support for Language Brokering
A central part of the ideology of “good” immigrants suggests that children of immigrants will
only be accepted as true “American” if they can manage their family affairs while successfully
obtaining social mobility. However, this places an enormous burden on the shoulders of children,
a challenge that is even more unmanageable when children lack adequate resources to navigate
flawed institutions. To the extent that we make children of immigrants responsible for solving
what are actually systemic, structural problems, they will continue to face a difficult familial
double bind. Children of immigrants should not have to shoulder more “responsibilities” than
their non-immigrant peers. Institutions and policies can change. Service providers can help.
One way to increase social support for language brokering is to first recognize that by
law, LEP institutions are entitled to have language access. Title VI of the Civic Rights Acts of
1964 mandates language access for federally funded programs. In California, the Bilingual
Service Act and Senate Bill 859 require language access within state agencies, including
telephone interpreters in 150 different languages. However, many immigrants I encountered do
not seem to know about these rights or do not request an interpreter. Furthermore, although many
social service providers I talked with had heard about these policies and ostensibly supported
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multiculturalism, in reality they often blamed non-English speakers for failing to learn English
and provided inadequate and inferior services to non-English speakers. In this context, it is
important to increase public awareness of these rights, thereby shifting the responsibility for
providing language “services” from non-English speakers and child language brokers to English-
speaking institutions.
Once we recognize and enforce the institutional provision of language access to non-
English speaking immigrants, the next step is to find the best way to accommodate their needs.
Despite having telephone interpreters, many institutional agents in this study refused to use such
services, believing them to be ineffective. For example, institutional agents complained that
many telephone interpreters did not know medical terminology or other jargon. As a result, many
English monolinguals relied on bilingual social service providers, who seemed to understand
such jargon. Nonetheless, I have demonstrated that there are at least two problems with using
bilingual staff for translation services. First, many institutional agents of color were inaccurately
racialized and assumed to be proficient in Spanish or an Asian language simply on the basis of
their skin color or last name. Second, although some institutional agents were fluently bilingual,
they had other responsibilities and felt that it was burdensome to perform interpreting work
without receiving extra compensation. In some cases, these bilingual agents pretended to be
English monolinguals in order to avoid extra translation tasks.
In response to the growing immigrant population, the police station at which I conducted
my participant observation sought the help of unpaid volunteers. Clearly, having these bilingual
volunteers on-site seemed to help both the institutional agents and the non-English speakers. On
a number of occasions, Korean-speaking immigrants expressed gratitude and reported that they
were relieved to talk with someone fluent in Korean. Although relying on volunteers is one way
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of dealing with the institutional failure, many police officers also complained that volunteers
were not “reliable.” Volunteers either wouldn’t show up or would quit after having received
extensive “training” on how to handle cases at the front desk. For this reason, it is important to
invest in paid bilingual interpreters, at least for the most commonlyspoken languages in a city.
In addition to these institutional changes, it is also imperative to recognize and respect
children’s brokering work as real work. Seeing children as incompetent and innocent objects,
state policymakers have attempted to prevent children from interpreting in public spaces.
However, children are knowing and reflex social actors, strategizing within their constraints to
connect their immigrant families to a wide range of institutional resources and information. Not
only do they make a profound difference in their families’ lives, but they also protect their
parents from interactions with people they consider “racist” or “rude.”
Hence, instead of condemning outright the work of these children as a form of
exploitation or demanding that children perform language brokering work, adults who receive
such services on a regular basis need to express gratitude and respect children’s expertise.
Although the children of immigrants in this study repeatedly said that it is their responsibility to
speak for their parents, in reality, they face a familial double bind, in part because they are
providing the language support that states often fail to provide for our nation’s growing
immigrant population. Despite providing language services for English monolinguals, many
children of immigrants in this study reported having negative interactions with social service
providers who “treated their parents like children” or who expressed annoyance. Because front-
line social service providers possess a large measure of control over both children’s brokering
experiences and the distribution of institutional resources, it is critical that these service
providers have more equitable interactions with child language brokers and treat them like social
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agents with valuable bilingual skills that service providers themselves draw on. This can be as
simple as waiting for children to finish interpreting, slowing down, encouraging them to ask
questions, and trying to accommodate their schedules. Once we recognize that they are providing
“real work” for institutional agents, it might be easier to express gratitude and make child
language brokers feel better about what they do for society at large.
Measuring Different Outcomes
When I present my research, other scholars often ask, “What will happen to these kids
when they grow up?” Although I did not conduct a longitudinal study, many respondents
overwhelming believed that growing up in a working-class immigrant household and
shouldering translation responsibilities for their families would help them obtain social mobility.
Nonetheless, it is unlikely that working-class children of immigrants will uniformly attain the
successful future that they all dream and translate their desire into reality. After all, many of the
kids in this study did not have enough time to complete their school work; some of them even
missed school. Their parents could not help them with homework and unless these parents relied
on their kids, they could not effectively communicate with school personnel. As a result,
working-class language brokers reported that their grades suffered. These working-class children
are also coming of age in the wake of economic, cultural, and social transformations— including
growing levels of income and wealth inequality, deindustrialization, a rise of anti-immigration
movements, declining social mobility, and the elimination of affirmative action policies— that
will all work against their efforts to achieve the so-called “American Dream” (Silva 2013). In the
end, middle-class white children— the group of kids that respondents in this study reconstructed
as lazy and spoiled— are far more likely to obtain social mobility with the help of their parents’
networks, resources, and transmittable cultural knowledge (Lareau 2003).
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It is institutional failure to take account of these language brokers’ valuable life
experiences that allows these children to “unsuccessfully” juggle multiple commitments.
At the same time, my study demonstrates that children language brokers already have valuable
skills that white middle-class children lack. These “assets” can be developed in the future to
make a significant difference in the community and beyond. Instead of using white-middle-class
achievement parameters to evaluate outcomes, I propose that we change what counts as success
and strive to create institutions that include language brokers’ embodied knowledge.
What kind of skills do children gain from engaging in language brokering work and how
can we further foster these assets? Comparing a “typical” middle-class childhood with an
immigrant childhood, Marjorie Orellana (2009) argues that while children whose parents read
them bedtime stories gain various skills, language brokers’ experiences of translating can also
potentially enhance children’s ability to solve problems, build vocabularies, and effectively
communicate with others. Generally, educators recognize the importance of problem solving
and communication skills as a critical part of youth development. While many educators
envision the classroom as the main place children learn to develop these valuable skills, this
study demonstrates that powerful learning experiences can and do occur outside of classrooms as
well. In acknowledging these different modes of learning that many children language brokers
experience, teachers can also incorporate students’ everyday experiences into the curriculum.
One way to do this is to create more flexible and open ended homework assignments that
privilege helping others and problem solving. In this way, language brokers can apply their
bilingual skills and everyday experiences to different contexts while getting credit for doing the
work that they already perform out of necessity. Furthermore, by making the curriculum relevant
to their students’ lives, teachers would signify that immigrant childhood are not inferior to the
145

“typical” white, middle-class childhood. Rather, it allows teachers to create space for other
students to learn and benefit from language brokers’ skills and expertise.
If educators believe that students need to learn problem solving and communication skills
within the classroom, many relegate leadership skills to extracurricular activities occurring
outside of the classroom such as student clubs (Omatsu 2006). Consequently, although
community leaders and even big corporations value leadership skills, many working-class
children have a hard time developing such skills as they have other responsibilities in addition to
their academic work that preclude regular participation in school-sanctioned extracurricular
activities. Glenn Omatsu (2006) argues that educators must break away from western way of
defining a leader— i.e. a strong and powerful person commanding others— to promote “shared
leadership” that emphasizes interdependency and empathy. Children language brokers already
know this through experience: by nature, translation means working with others to accomplish
goals. When they speak for their parents, they cooperate with their parents and other family
members to gain institutional resources. They also gain an enormous sense of empathy; they get
into their parents’ shoes and try to understand their struggles and even as they complain about
“mean” English-speaking adults, they still try to understand “busy” institutional agents.
Consequently, educators need to help these youth further develop these leadership
qualities by creating group projects that allow their students to work in teams and to address the
needs of the community. If we move away from the traditional definition of leadership and treat
the development of empathy, compassion, and interdependence as outcomes, these language
brokers are already leaders and team players. This leadership development can occur in the
classroom if we include their “after school activities” into the curriculum and treat teamwork as a
valuable outcome.
146

Finally, instead of regarding youths’ resistance to structural inequalities as the major
obstacle to becoming “good” immigrants, we must treat their social location at the margin of
language, race and class as a special place of strength. Similar to the ways that people “undo”
(Deutsch 2007) or “redo” gender (Walzer 2008) at the interactional level, marginalized youths’
worldviews, derived from their particular social location, can potentially affect change beyond
their families when they, for example, become teachers (Flores 2011), social workers (Watkins-
Hayes 2009), or activists (Rios 2011; Terriquez and Kwon 2014). In fact, it was from her own
outsider-within status that Patricia Hill Collins (1986) produced “Black feminist thought that
reflects a special standpoint on self, family, and society” (p.14) and profoundly changed the
study of sociology as a discipline. Furthermore, as the historical changes of the 1960’s and 70’s
suggest, the boundaries of what seems possible can expand when the “right” historical
circumstances provide people at the margin with greater opportunities to join larger movements.
In short, outsider-within ways of seeing the world can “reaffirm human subjectivity and
intentionality” (Collins 1986, p.28) and produce cumulative effects on power relations, often
informing organized movements (Kelly 1993). Language brokers have a special place in our
society; their experience of translating class and race, as well as their simultaneously elevated
and subordinated status as outsider-within can create moments of resistance and empowerment.
***
During the course of my research, many people that I encountered on a daily basis— at
bars, parties, and other get-togethers— asked me, “So, what do you study?” When I tell them
that I study children who translate for their parents, they often have strong reactions. Some
people are excited to talk about their gardener’s son who always interprets for his parents; others
recall talking to the bilingual daughter of their domestic worker. At other times, I have
147

encountered people who have told me about an unusually smart kid who bargained at home
depot or other department stores on behalf of her immigrant parents. Some of these observers
express a sense of empathy for children who must shoulder “adult” responsibilities. They also
feel bad for non-English speakers, ostensibly support diversity, and acknowledge that without the
help of bilingual children (or unpaid interpreters), they would not be able provide vital services
to our nation’s growing immigrant population.
At the same time, however, the vast majority of English-speaking adults outside of
immigrant communities also echo the criticisms that I’ve heard from health care providers and
police officers that I interviewed. The common criticisms can be categorized into three types.
The first response is that children should not translate for adults. Critics argue that translating for
adults forces kids to grow up too fast, jeopardizing their psychological development. The second
response is, “Immigrants should learn English.” Finally, some people worry that parents will
lose authority in their households and fail to maintain the normative parent-child hierarchy.
They are too familiar with the story of the immigrant family gone wrong in which “traditional”
parents clash with “assimilated” children. In fact, these seemingly diverse responses draw upon a
common underlying theme: only if parents learn the language of the nation and assimilate into
the mainstream, can they protect their children from the “dangers” of the adult world and prevent
a reversal of parent-child relations.
As I have shown, the public’s reactions to the lives of children language brokers reflect
the nation’s ambivalence towards the growing number of immigrants. Such reactions extend far
beyond the lives of children language brokers. These discourses contain a wide spectrum of
discussion that includes, at one end, the challenges to accommodate the cultural and linguistic
needs of our growing population of immigrants, and at the other end, a fear of the difference that
148

threatens to change the hegemonic beliefs about “American” family. That is, the controversy
over child language brokers is a controversy over what constitutes a good family and a good
immigrant.
If I have accomplished my goals, I have demonstrated that children’s work do not pose
danger to parent-child relations or child development. Children of immigrants want to provide
their labor for their hard working-parents. Many of these children are expert language brokers.
Instead of challenging parental authority, they try to protect their parents’ dignity and try to
cooperate with other adults to make a significant difference in their family lives. Yet, social
problems such as structural inequalities and dominant repertoires about immigrants and families
regulate how children make sense of their lives, making it difficult for them to navigate
institutions while trying to speak and translate for their parents.
There is much to learn from these children’s experiences of translating class and race.
They teach us about the contradictions that undergird our national identity; the contradiction
between our nation’s official notion of equality and the actual practice of exclusion. They teach
us about profound social inequality that they’ve have to navigate for the broader society. They
also teach us how to be empathetic; they teach us that empathy is not tolerance, not piety, and not
“helping” immigrants and their children to become like white-middle class families. They teach
us how to be interdependent, allowing us to see how adults, English-speakers, can depend on one
another. These lessons are profoundly sociological. They demand that we look not at individuals
or families, but at broader systems, institutions, and interactions in which all groups are
embedded, and which have particular ramifications for those living at the margins. At the same
time, they also encourage us to imagine new possibilities; a society where we measure “success”
by how empathetic, compassionate, conscious “Americans” we become.
149

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Abstract (if available)

Abstract Immigrant childhood is often shaped by what many Americans view as “adult” responsibilities. Out of necessity, many children of immigrants use their bilingual skills to navigate structural constraints that impact their family lives. Based on ethnographic research at a police station as well as interviews with 80 working-class Mexican- and Korean-American language brokers and 23 healthcare providers, this study examines how children language brokers understand and negotiate the experience of translating for their immigrant parents in English-speaking spaces of America. Focusing on everyday domesticity to racialized public encounters to life-threatening situations involving health care access and police protection, the findings show that racial meanings, which marginalize Mexican-Americans as a problematic underclass while extolling Asian-Americans as successful foreigners, reverberate in the family lives of immigrant youth. In so doing, this dissertation demonstrates that the long standing assimilation paradigm focusing on the cultural gap between immigrant parents and their U.S.-raised children fails to capture the complicated processes through which children of immigrants negotiate their family relations. Instead, I argue that racialized nativism is at the heart of their family lives, constraining immigrant families’ access to public resources and imposing a difficult double bind for children of immigrants. Whereas most sociological studies on children of immigrants examine how well these children assimilate into U.S. society, this study moves beyond an outcome-oriented framework, which, at its roots, is a story of upward mobility. Employing intersectional and interactional approaches reveal that children of immigrants are by no means passive recipients of “American” values, and they struggle to reconstruct imposed racial meanings that shape their family relations. Ultimately, these approaches bring preexisting social inequality back into the analysis, providing a new way of thinking about immigrant youths’ agency.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Kwon, Hyeyoung (author)

Core Title Translating race, class, and immigrant lives: the family work of children language brokers

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Sociology

Publication Date 11/10/2017

Defense Date 07/15/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag children of immigrants,class,Korean Americans,language brokers,Mexican Americans,OAI-PMH Harvest,Race

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Saito, Leland (committee chair), Hays, Sharon (committee member), Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette (committee member), Sanchez, George (committee member), Terriquez, Veronica (committee member)

Creator Email kwonh@usc.edu,thehyeyoungkwon@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-198237

Unique identifier UC11277454

Identifier etd-KwonHyeyou-4025.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-198237 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-KwonHyeyou-4025.pdf

Dmrecord 198237

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Kwon, Hyeyoung

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA