Falling between two worlds

Many immigrants face problems, find feeling of belonging in gangs

The debate over immigration often dwells on keeping illegal immigrants from slipping into the country, but when it comes to Hispanic youths who are already here, an opposite concern arises -- too many are slipping away.

Hispanic youths, some born here, some who entered the country illegally but are growing up here, are at increasing risk of drifting into self-destructive and criminal behavior as they try to find their place in a culture that is at turns ambivalent and resistant about accepting them, according to those who have studied trends among Hispanic immigrants.

In North Carolina, a host of indicators show that many immigrant teens are not succeeding:

* Dropout rates for Hispanic students are higher than for any other group in the state. In the 2005-06 school year, nearly 9 percent of Hispanic high school students dropped out, compared with less than 4.5 percent of white students.

* More than half of North Carolina's Hispanic girls are expected to be be pregnant before their 20th birthdays.

* A recent study of nearly 300 Hispanic immigrant teens in North Carolina, done by the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work, sketched a picture of a population with emotional scars, uneducated parents and the pervasive feeling that they are not accepted by Americans.

More than half said they felt unsafe during their journeys to the United States, and a third said they were robbed, attacked, injured or became sick during the trip. Once here, more than 40 percent said they had faced ethnic discrimination, most frequently by their classmates.

Sixty-five percent of the teens agreed that "Americans generally feel superior to foreigners." Only 5 percent said they received any counseling.

A national survey, run by New York University professor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, tracked immigrant teens for five years. At the end, half were doing worse in school than when the study began. More than half of Hispanic children don't graduate in four years, Suárez-Orozco said.

The times hold both high promise and deep peril for immigrant children, he said.

"These kids are more likely than ever before in the history of the United States to go to Harvard University. And they're also more likely to get involved in gangs and be involved in the criminal justice system," Suarez-Orozco said.

Juana Martinez, 17, a senior at Wake Forest-Rolesville High School, is the president of the club Latinos Constructing a Better Future, formed as part of a gang prevention effort. At a recent meeting, she said, several boys talked about taunts from classmates.

"They said that some people have told them, 'Hey, go back to Mexico,' " Martinez said. "And some of them aren't even from Mexico. They were born here."

Martinez said she has watched many of her Hispanic classmates drift into trouble: girls getting pregnant, boys wearing gang colors and forming segregated groups, others dropping out to take low-wage jobs.

Some Hispanic boys at her school, she said, feel that a grade point average higher than 2.5 is "too smart."

For many Hispanic students, their problems stem from their family circumstances. Their parents are often desperately poor and uneducated, and they come to the United States ill-equipped to deal with the pressure their children will face. Many work long hours and understand little of what goes on inside their children's schools.

Martinez, who moved to North Carolina from Mexico with her mother when she was 9, says her mother doesn't speak English. Her mother was never able to help with homework and felt uncomfortable visiting her schools. The elder Martinez didn't even know to ask for a report card, her daughter said.