Sources of Local Integration

Abstract

In the previous chapter, I observed that a shift favoring immigrant family rather than adult migrant settlement helped reduce anti-immigrant sentiment and housing discrimination in Shandon. The reduced tensions reflected the differing ways settled families of immigrants and groups of transnational migrant adults fit socially into the local scene. Shandon lacked institutions that could help integrate adult migrants. The access immigrant families had to Shandon’s lone major integrative institution—the school district—was crucial to reducing tensions as settled families became more numerous. In sharp contrast to the behavior of Shandon adults of 1990, native and immigrant youth were highly integrated, interacting at length with one another on a daily basis due to a combination of institutional requirement and individual choice. Youth integration made it possible for native and immigrant families to acknowledge one another as settled, responsible, and quality community members. In this chapter, I discuss how local schools functioned to integrate Shandon, and how they helped to build and maintain community and a local identity crosscutting and mitigating the divisiveness associated with other social distinctions, particularly ethnic ones.