Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1: Introduction
introduction to the Dissertation
The uneven presence of Asians and Latinos in Valley High School’s (VHS)[1] Honors and Advanced Placement (AP) math and English courses as well as the uneven college eligibility rates of graduating Asians and Latinos at VHS is driven by distinct social network involvement and advocacy. What is involved in this disparity?Specifically, how are decisions about which courses to take and which post-high school plans to make socially constructed by students and with them vis-à-vis the social networks in which they participate? Through a set of qualitative research approaches where interview, observational and textual data are collected and interpreted, this dissertation provides an account of network practices among Chinese andLatino students at VHS that are key for better understanding the fashioning and attainment of their immediate and long-term educational plans.
Three general questions shape the scope of the dissertation: 1) In which social networks are students involved and what is the advocacy and support that is provided within them? 2) How does the advocacy and support that students receive in thesenetworks factor in their track placement and in their post-high school plans? And, 3) how is students’ participation in their respective social networks impacted by material constraints and opportunities? In this way I extend the range of sociological research (Bankston and Zhou 2002b; Brittain 2002; Coleman 1988; Moynihan 1965; Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Zhou 1997; Zhou 2002) whose focus onstudents’ culture has provided initial and what I believe to be an incomplete ground for understanding various youth-based outcomes. Now, special attention is placed on the material parameters that have not been fully considered in studies of students’ educational aspirations and pursuits. The analysis of student social network involvement is set within three domains: 1) parent/family networks, 2)school staff/other adult, and 3) peer/extracurricular networks. The significance of this study rests in its application of the critical network analysis (Stanton-Salazar 2001; Stanton-Salazar 1997) with which I expose the continued crisis in the schooling of Chicano and Latino students. Where historical forms of educational discrimination were blatant in the treatment of racial minorities,contemporary forms are less blatant though no less damaging. This dissertation presents and analyzes one such case.
Asian and Latino Presence in the WSGV
Traditional interpretations of immigration have been used to make sense of the rapid population shifts that have taken place in the West San Gabriel Valley (WSGV) since the late 1970s and early 1980s and that was facilitated by the Hart-CellarImmigration Act of 1965 (Waldinger 1996). In this case, previous national origins quotas that had restricted immigration primarily to European immigrants gave way to the unprecedented immigration of Asians and Latinos. Since then, each of these groups has experienced different mobility paths in US society. In the following section I provide an overview of the immigrant experience of each group inthe WSGV.
Asians in the WSGV
The traditional exclusion of Asians from US society extends back in history to the Chinese Exclusion Acts of the 19th century and early 20th century (Almaguer 1994; Chan 1986; Lowe 1996). The repeal of these government policies and the establishment of the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 set the stage for the sort of presence of Asian immigrants—particularly Chineseimmigrants—in the WSGV. Chinese immigration to the WSGV was predicated on the more liberal national origins quotas of the Hart-Cellar Act and on larger international political and economic realities that motivated Chinese emigration (Fong 1994; Ong 1999; Saito 1998). For instance, the international recognition that the United Nations provided the People’s Republic of China and the eventual...