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9781636678443

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“Peter J. Guarnaccia’s book is an enjoyable and thoughtful examination of how cultural capital plays a role in the triumphant educational stories of immigrants. It is rare to read reflections of successful immigrants effectively navigating the educational U.S. system, but Guarnaccia’s book does exactly that. His book is a revelation of how culture anchors immigrants to persevere through educational challenges, from applying to college or being ‘seen’ as different in college. It touches on the intimate maintenance of cultural roots and how those roots embed values, routines and interpretation in everyday life that can become assets. His book opens a window into how culture imprints identity and meaning, weaving the scientific research evidence with the personal narratives and reflections of immigrant college students. At the same time, it reveals the author’s personal journey to better understand how our heritage gives us meaning and a lens to construe interpretations of the world. It also is an insightful exploration of how immigrant families’ dreams of social mobility get transferred into the DNA of their children. I very much enjoyed the descriptions of how the immigrant family clan supports educational aspirations, and his chapters offer perceptive views of how ‘cultural resources and optimism’ characterize immigrants, even in the face of adversity. Many will recognize themselves in these pages since it is a glorious collaboration of Guarnaccia’s storytelling with the lived experience of immigrant students. From this book, we can learn much about why immigrants do so well, and what we might need to learn from them.”—Margarita Alegria, Professor, Departments of Medicine & Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and Chief, Disparities Research Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital “This book, rich with intimate and insightful quotations and narratives from immigrant college students, unpacks the challenges that students from many different countries face, often with limited resources, in navigating multiple languages, cultural expectations and performances, and family and institutional demands. Written in accessible language, the concepts it unfolds—identity, language, culture, acculturation—are central to understanding and appreciating the complexities of the immigrant experience in higher education. A classic of its kind, the book offers a valuable theoretical, social, cultural and political contribution to the contemporary dialogues and diatribes around immigration, migration and the resilience of recent arrivals to the United States as they strive for success in American higher education.”—Jean J. Schensul, Senior Scientist and Founding Director of the Institute for Community Research in Hartford, CT, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Community Medicine at the University of Connecticut, and Editor and Author of The Ethnographer’s Toolkit “Immigration, Diversity and Student Journeys to Higher Education offers a much needed and insightful account of the successful transition to university among immigrant students. The compelling analysis draws on the voices of students to highlight the powerful role of family, community, schools and the university context in shaping their paths to and experiences with higher education. College is now the ticket to upward mobility in the United States, and yet, we still know little about how the children of immigrants make this critical transition, along with the crucial identity and language shifts they encounter along the way. Peter J. Guarnaccia, an expert in immigrant cultural adaptation, has written a timely and important book.”—Vivian Louie, Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College, Author of Compelled to Excel: Immigration, Education and Opportunity among Chinese Americans and Keeping the Immigrant Bargain: The Costs and Rewards of Success in America

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Peter J. Guarnaccia (Ph. D., Connecticut, 1984) is an Emeritus Professor at Rutgers University. For 36 years, he was a Professor in the Department of Human Ecology and an Investigator at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy & Aging Research. His research interests include cross-cultural patterns of psychiatric disorders and processes of cultural change among immigrants. He was the 2022 Faculty recipient of the Clement A. Price Human Dignity Award at Rutgers University

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