Introduction

    Academic studies of immigration have focused on assimilation as their leit-motif for more than three-quarters of a century (Gordon, 1964: 365; Kazal, 1995: 69).  Traditionally, the literature has viewed immigrants as assimilating into mainstream white American culture.  More recently, however, with the advent of the “new immigration” of non-European peoples, a new focus has emerged.  At the end of the 20th century, some immigrants are apparently assimilating into native minority subcultures rather than mainstream white America (Portes and Zhou, 1993:74).

    Because of the diverse and relatively vast numbers of immigrants coming to the US in recent years the question is not if they are assimilating into American society per se, but rather into what sectors of American society?  Instead of moving into a relatively uniform mainstream by a common path of integration,  several distinct forms of adaptation are observed.

    Among other variables, adaptation depends considerably on where immigrants settle and with whom they come into contact. (Zhou, 1997:979).  While the emergence of a middle-class population is a distinctive aspect of today’s immigration, a relatively large number of immigrant children have settled in underprivileged neighborhoods where immigrants and their children come into direct daily contact with the poor (ibid).  They are also apt to encounter members of native minorities rather than members of the dominant majority. Such is the case of black Haitian immigrants in the inner city assimilating into African American urban culture.  The implications attributed to this type of segmentary assimilation are usually negative, a concern over falling into poverty and crime. In this case, adopting the outlooks of the native born does not represent steps toward upward social and economic mobility (Portes and Zhou, 1993:82).

    However there are some immigrant youths who may voluntarily remain a close part of their ethnic community, and by virtue of that fact have a better chance for upward mobility through the use of the social capital that their ethnic community makes available (ibid).  This contradicts traditional ideas of assimilation that tell us that the second generation moves away from their immigrant community into the mainstream in order to achieve economic and social advancement (ibid).

    In Miami where the majority is Hispanic, the population segments itself into distinctive national Hispanic identities  (Portes and Stepick, 1993; Stepick and Grenier, 1993).  Portes says that Cubans have assimilated into an ideal segment that associates rapid economic advancement with deliberate preservation of their communities’ values and tight solidarity (Portes and Zhou,  1993:82).  What happens when another Spanish-speaking immigrant group settles in the same area?  Will they be absorbed by the Cuban community?  Will they gravitate toward mainstream White American culture?  Or, will they form their own community?

    This study addresses these questions by focusing on the case of Nicaraguan immigrant adolescents living in a predominantly Cuban middle and working class neighborhood and attending a predominantly Cuban high school.  In brief, it finds that Cuban adolescents stigmatize and reject Nicaraguan students. Nicaraguan adolescents respond by covering up their Nicaraguan identity and adopting a peculiar Hispanic identity.

    Cubans in Miami are not typically poor, nor is this neighborhood inner-city.  Moreover, Cubans in Miami and in this neighborhood and high school have power and status.  In some respects they are the ‘mainstream’ culture that confronts immigrants upon arrival to Miami.  This paper addresses how this anomaly affects both identity and academic orientation among Nicaraguan first and second generation immigrant adolescents.

    Suarez-Orozco and Ogbu hypothesize that Central American immigrant school children maintain a dual-frame of reference with respect to their education.  According to Suarez-Orozco and Ogbu, these newly arrived immigrants tend to do better academically because they compare their new situation and education in the US to their prior, often brutal situation in their homeland (Suarez-Orozco, 1991:46).  The authors maintain that Central American immigrants see educational achievement in the US as their ticket away from discrimination and toward opportunity; whereas in their homeland educational achievement means little if you are cast as Indian or ‘Indio’(ibid).
Relatedly, Fernandez-Kelly and Schauffler discuss a sixteen year old Nicaraguan refugee who responds to discrimination from her peers as she “maintains her independence , withdraws from her peers and endures being called a nerd” (Fernandez-Kelly and Schauffler, 1995:684).  My own observations of some of the Nicaraguan adolescents are similar because many of them, especially the newly arrived immigrants, appear withdrawn from their peers but have found comfort in their books and teachers.

    These positive academic attributes are not necessarily always the case, especially in an enclave community where Cubans are seen as the ‘mainstream’ while Nicaraguans are placed into a subordinate position.  While some Nicaraguan immigrant adolescents use positive academic orientation as a ticket away from this subordinate position, others use denial of their Nicaraguan identity.  While the theory of segmentary assimilation has proven useful in explaining the Cuban enclave in Miami, further explanation of where and how Nicaraguans fit into this segment needs to be addressed in order to examine the peculiarity of one immigrant group migrating into a more prosperous immigrant enclave.

    Once these students have maintained a lengthy stay in the US, they learn there is another ticket toward acceptance in their new environment besides high achievement in school.  Specifically, they learn to discard those ‘Nica’ characteristics that attracted ridicule and placement in an inferior position. Unlike the Cubans who, according to Portes’ segmentary assimilation model, have been able to maintain their sense of ‘Cubanness’ while achieving, many of the Nicaraguan youth have had to give up that sense of who they are. They do this by giving up their unique Nicaraguan Spanish, labeling themselves as something other than ‘Nicaraguan’, and ignoring their former ideas about family.  A greater understanding of where these struggles originate lies in the events surrounding South Florida’s heritage of immigration.

History of Immigration

    Nicaraguans and Cubans may both be ‘Latino’ immigrant groups.  The popular press also frequently describe both as refugees.  However, for those Nicaraguans now in Miami the differences between them and Cubans are more salient than the similarities.  Washington did not welcome the Nicaraguans as they did the Cubans (Portes and Stepick, 1993:151).  All Cuban migrants, until the 1980 Mariel flow, were automatically extended the right to remain in the country. They also received generous benefits packages (Stepick and Grenier, 1993).  However a different ideology was employed toward Nicaraguans and the situation in Nicaragua. Washington virtually demanded that their countrymen accept the opportunity to confront the Sandinistas on their own terrain (Portes and Stepick, 1993:156,157).

    The position that the federal government and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) took with Nicaraguan immigrants can be more accurately compared to the Haitian immigrant experience.  First, as with Haitians, Nicaraguans claimed to be fleeing political repression and government violence in their country and like Haitians, they are also emigrants from an extremely poor country (Masad-Piloto, 1985:120).  Second, in Nicaragua, as in Haiti, politics and economics cannot be separated, since the former strongly influences the latter.  The INS classified both Haitians and Nicaraguans as economic refugees and refused them asylum on political grounds (ibid).
Nicaraguans constitute, after Cubans, the second largest immigrant community in Miami  (US Census, 1990).  Their flow began in the early 1980’s, tweny years after the beginning of the Cuban flow. The initial wave of Nicaraguan migration consisted mostly of elites and allies of Somosa (Portes and Stepick, 1993:152).  By the late 1980’s the immigrants consisted primarily of blue-collar workers. This wave of migration peaked for Nicaraguans as the dramatic exodus of early 1989, the equivalent of the Cubans’ Mariel (ibid).  By this time Nicaraguans had established a visible presence in Miami, specifically in neighborhoods once occupied by newly arrived Cubans.

    Nicaraguans who arrived before January 1, 1982 obtained their permanent residency status through the Amnesty authorized by the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 (USINS 1985-1993).  In 1988, Nicaraguans submitted 15,530 applications for US legalization under the IRCA program (ibid) .  Before that,  according to INS figures, 23,261 Nicaraguans were admitted as permanent residents in the US from 1976 to 1985.  Due to the growing violence and political conflict in Nicaragua the number of admitted permanent residents increased to 75,264 from 1986 to 1993 (ibid).

    The 1990 US Census reported 74,244 Nicaraguans residing in Dade County (US Census,1990).  Leaders in the Nicaraguan community and others dispute this figure, claiming that there are over 250,000 (Marin, 1996).  A more conservative figure is given by The Planning Department of Metropolitan Dade County which estimates that approximately 90,000 Nicaraguans reside in Dade county (ibid).    The Statistical Yearbooks of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from 1985 to 1993, may be the most reliable estimator of the size of the Nicaraguan community since they account for all Nicaraguans (and others) who arrive already with legal documentation or who, upon arrival to the US, file political asylum applications (Ibid).   By submitting these applications, arrivals are counted by INS.   INS reported that there are approximately 250,000 Nicaraguans in the United States.  Of these, approximately 50 per cent live
in Dade County or roughly 125,000 (USINS, 1993).

Source: US Immigration and Naturalization Service, Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1994.  US Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1994.

     The massive influx of Nicaraguans between 1988 and 1990 had significantly diminished by 1991.  This decrease was mainly attributed to the defeat of the Sandinistas in the 1989 elections.  The figure rose slightly again in 1993, because of extremely poor economic conditions in the homeland (USINS).  The latest figures from the World Bank show a GDP per capita of $502 in Nicaragua (IADB, 1994:103t.3).  That is the lowest GDP per capita in Central America and one of the lowest in the Western Hemisphere (ibid).

    More recent reports of Nicaraguan residency status have focused on a provision in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility act which threatened to deport an estimated 40,000 Nicaraguans (Miami Herald, 1997:1A).  In March of 1997, forty-one immigrants from Nicaragua and other countries sued the government to block the deportations, saying they were unfairly deprived of the promised suspension-of-deportation hearings (ibid).  This event, along with at least four protests held by Nicaraguans in front of the INS building in Dade County prompted Senior US District Judge James Lawrence King to issue a temporary restraining order during the summer of 1997 barring the deportations (ibid).

    In a small office cluttered with immigration and case papers, the director of Fraternidad Nicaraguense, one of the few Nicaraguan community organizations, expressed her frustration:
Nicaraguans are discriminated against in South Florida. No politicians want to hear what we have to say.  I don’t know why. They ignore us. We pay taxes, but don’t get the benefits everyone else does.  Many of us are still seeking permanent residence.  Every year we go to Washington to lobby, but they won’t listen!...There are several Cuban organizations, and they each receive millions of dollars per year.

    Based upon an open-arms welcome from the US government, the Cuban community in Miami has had a much different experience. Not only does US law automatically provide permanent residence to any Cuban who has been in the US for at least one year, but also through the 1970's Cubans received what may be the most generous benefits package ever bestowed on an immigrant or native minority group  (Portes and Stepick, 1993:156,157).   As a result, by the 1990's Miami’s Cuban community commanded great political, social, and economic influence throughout the greater Miami area.  Cubans now hold prominent positions in all areas of city and county government including mayors of the city and county, many of the highest level administrative posts of Miami Dade County Public Schools, and elected seats in the US and Florida State legislatures.

    Moreover, Cubans enjoy economic success.  Although Hispanics, including Cubans and Nicaraguans constitute the absolute majority of the Dade County population, Cubans constitute about 60 percent of that population (1990 US Census). In short, unlike Latinos throughout the rest of the US, Cubans in Miami do not operate from a position of subservience.  Rather, they have become Miami’s most visibly dominant group, far outweighing the power held by Nicaraguans, Colombians, Haitians, and West Indians--just to name a few of Miami’s immigrant groups.  In terms of assimilation they are Miami’s mainstream.

Methodology

    In order to discover where Nicaraguan teenagers are going academically either toward academic success or academic failure and why, I have been conducting research with a cohort of 30 Nicaraguan immigrant adolescents and their families. The study began three years ago when the adolescents entered their freshman year of high school. They are currently enrolled in their junior year. All of the adolescents attend “Coral High” a school whose enrollment is over 90 percent Hispanic .  The students and their families are considered to be part of a second and third wave of predominantly working-class Nicaraguans who have migrated to this west Miami area (Portes and Stepick, 1993).

    I have also administered comprehensive surveys to both individual students and a separate questionnaire to their parents.  These instruments were elaborations of Portes and Rumbaut’s work with the children of immigrants and minorities in South Florida and San Diego, California (Portes and Rumbaut, Spring 1992).

    The primary method is participant observation and informal interviewing which consisted of sitting with the students in their classes, eating lunch with them and their friends in the cafeteria, and going into their homes.  Questions about the apparent “dual-frame-of-reference” led me to do field research in Nicaragua in the summer of 1997. There I was able to observe and interview extended families of the students as well as investigate those schools which some of them once attended or would have attended had they not migrated.

    This study was conducted in conjunction with other researchers at FIU who are similarly working with  various immigrant and minority adolescents in Dade county including Haitians, Mexicans, Cubans, Jamaicans, and African Americans.

Ethnographic Data

    On a macro level the reluctance to let Nicaraguans into the US, and the associated push to deport them back to Nicaragua, indicates discrimination.  On the micro level,  the immigrant student culture at Coral High reflects this broader rejection. To the Nicaraguan students, the high-school culture echoes the message, ‘you don’t belong’.

Coral High

    Coral High’s student body is approximately 90% Hispanic with a third of the students of Cuban origin, a third of Nicaraguan origin, and the rest a combination representing most of the other countries of Latin America.   About 40 per cent of the Coral High faculty are of Cuban background, and the principal is Cuban-born.  Although English is the prevailing language used in the classroom and during social interaction, Spanish can often be heard in the halls and classrooms.  A typical example could be found within the daily dialect of Leanna, a Nicaraguan who migrated to Miami with her family when she was six years old.  At school she speaks English with a Spanish accent peculiar to Miami and Coral High, periodically throwing Spanish words into her sentences, e.g., “I like this class pero the teacher is so boring.”  Also, Leanna will use words unique to some Miami high-schools that incorporate the two languages--what some may refer to as ‘Spanglish’ (or in Miami, ‘Cubonics’).  “Beepame!”, Leanna will exclaim to a friend, meaning “beep me on my beeper”.  Later in the evening, Spanish will roll from her tongue as she converses with her mother.
Despite the influence of Hispanic culture at Coral High, the school can still be characterized as a predominantly mainstream American environment.  The American flag flies prominently in the main school entrance and inside teachers employ the standard Florida State curriculum and textbooks.  Newly arrived immigrant students with little or no knowledge of English are placed in one of the many ESOL or English-for-Speakers-of-Other-Languages classes.  These classes function primarily not to maintain one’s native language, but rather to promote English and the associated rapid mainstreaming of foreign students.

    The subservient stance that I observed Nicaraguan students holding at Coral High parallels the position they hold in the South Florida community.  Grace, a second generation Nicaraguan adolescent, asserted, “...they call me ‘tira flecha’ (meaning “Indian” or in literal English, “arrow thrower”).  It’s not very nice.”

“Who calls you this?” I asked her.

“Cubans.” she replied.

Being Indian, as Cubans accuse Nicaraguans of being, is considered derogatory to most Hispanic students whose ideas of race stem from the ideas that say European/White is superior (Graham 1990; Wright 1990; Adams 1990).   In many Latin American countries, those of Indian descent are considered inferior to those considered having European ancestors.  Similar racial tensions are also perceived in Miami between those who migrated from so-called “whiter” countries like Cuba and so-called Indian countries like Nicaragua. In Nicaragua if you are labeled “Indio” you are considered by others to be inferior. In Miami, if you are from Nicaragua, you may be thought of as the inferior ‘Indian’.

    Sixteen-year-old Anita combats racial remarks by describing Cubans as, “peleones, gritones, inrespetuosos, y mal educados,” meaning they are “fighters, loud/obnoxious, disrespectful, and uncultured.”  In contrast to the Cuban student who called Grace “tira flecha”, this Nicaraguan student directed her insults at the Cuban character or personality rather than racial background.

Time of Arrival

    Traditionally assimilation has typically occured much more quickly and thoroughly with the second rather than first generation.  However, many first generation Nicaraguan youths at Coral High adopt the ways and attitudes of the mainstream students at a vigorous pace.  The road of assimilation can be difficult, especially when it means breaking discrimination and legal barriers.  It starts when they first arrive with images of the homeland still fresh in their memory.   It moves on to a familiarity with their new society, their position in it, and the legal status and social capital they need to become a part of it.  It ends, if all goes well, with adapting to the mainstream, which in this case is the predominantly Cuban dominated Hispanic enclave of their suburban community. The Nicaraguan adolescents in this sample tend to fall into these three general ‘time-of-arrival’ categories, each having distinct academic orientations.  The first category, the “refies,”  include those who have migrated recently--within the past 5 years.  The second, the “midways,” are those who have been in the US for sometime: about 10 years.  The third category, the “Americans” are those who arrived here as infants or are of second generation.

The “Refies”

    The mainstream students at Coral High have come up with a name for the  newly arrived Nicaraguan adolescents, the “refies.”  Used as a derogatory term by other students, a refie has a reputation in the school of being dirty, unable to speak English well, and is at fault for ruining the once nice neighborhood.  A second generation Cuban student described refies to me, “you know, they’re the ones right-off-the-boat” she said laughing “Those people are dirty.  They say dirty things to me when I walk by.”

    As new arrivals, these students do indeed speak little or no English. They spend most of their school days segregated in ESOL classes. Their primary concern is learning English well enough to get into the mainstream curriculum.  They are far from “cool,” instead exhibiting naiveté or innocence.  During one of my first visits to an ESOL class, a student handed me a small toy frog, stating the word with pride and playfulness, “Frog.”  This is something the mainstream students would have ridiculed and would never have allowed themselves to do.  In spite of their innocence, the recently arrived students appear more mature and less concerned with impressing their peers with a cool image than the mainstream students.   Not yet familiarized with the trendy fashions and with their families lack of income, their dress style is simple and considered out-dated by other students.

    These are the students who fall under Ogbu’s and Suarez-Orozco’s  dual-frame-of-reference category.  They come from a cohort of Nicaraguans who migrated recently for the most part because of great economic recession in their homeland. They refer to Nicaragua as a place of economic strife with little opportunity for mobility.

    While in Nicaragua, I got a closer look at what their life was like.  The public schools did not provide textbooks because of lack of funds, attendance records are not stored in computer data bases, but on poster board on the walls, the classrooms are characterized by broken desks and graffiti-covered walls. There the students are sociable amongst one another, but have more immediate concerns than their social life among peers, specifically the well-being of their families.  I commented to an administrator in one of Managua’s public high schools about how the classrooms seemed crowded.  “Well, this is only half of the original attendance of the beginning of the semester”, he told me, “About half of the kids dropped out so they could work to earn money for their families.”

    These images of the homeland are important, because they are still fresh in the minds of the newly arrived students.  What other students take for granted at Coral High, these students feel lucky to have in order to advance their educational goals.

    They see education in the US as their only path to a better way of life.  When asked to write an essay about their New Year’s resolution, a majority of the ESOL students wrote  “to get good grades, to get a good job, to help my family.”  With the newly arrived students, there is no room for popularity contests or fitting in with the “cool” crowd.  At this stage of assimilation they actually appear unaware that there is a peer hierarchy of sorts. The newer arrivals’ primary concern is education.

    Alvaro, for example, migrated to Miami two years ago with aspirations to “get the best education I can and become an engineer”.  He has accepted his “refie” status in the school and finds comfort in his books and teachers.  When I first met Alvaro two years ago, he could barely speak English.  Since then he has graduated out of the ESOL classes and into the mainstream classes where he receives mostly high grades.

    Along with the acceptance of not becoming part of the popular or even acceptable crowd, there is also an acknowledgment of the possibility of having to return to Nicaragua.  With many of the newly arrived students this is a growing possibility.  Still having strong connections with their home country, the threat of being deported is not as shocking to them as to students who have more fully assimilated.  “No..I don’t think....there is really no way Alvaro can go to college here.  He can’t get the (legal) papers. He’s going back to Nicaragua.” Alvaro’s sister and guardian assures me.  In this household they have opened themselves to the potential of returning to Nicaragua, and in doing so have maintained their sense of “Nica-ness”.  In the meantime Alvaro remains oblivious to or simply ignores the pressures immigrant students feel about being put into a subordinate position by others who may discriminate against them.

The ‘Midway’ Immigrants

    The second category, what I will refer to as the “midway” students, is where most of my cohort of 30 students fall.  These are the students who migrated to Miami between six and ten years ago.  This cohort migrated either during or shortly after the Contra war for both political and economic reasons.  They have been here long enough to learn the language, feel pressure to have the latest pair of $150 “Air Jordan” shoes, and fit into the mainstream crowd.   Most of these students have some “dual-frame-of-reference” because they remember their homeland, but memories are dim and mystified.  They no longer have a clear here-and-there to compare.  It is mostly the “here” that concerns them.

    To avoid derogatory stereotypes and epithets,  “midway” students label themselves “Latin” or “Hispanic” at a greater frequency than Cuban adolescents, who label themselves “Cuban” or “Cuban-American” .  Diana for example, maintains that her parents consider themselves, “Latin” as opposed to Nicaraguan.  She tells me she attends a “Latin” church, listens to “Latin” music and her mother cooks “Latin” food for her.

    As Fernandez-Kelly has stated, “Ironically, many Nicaraguans think of themselves as Hispanics precisely because they...experience a strong dissociational push away from their own national group” (Fernandez-Kelly and Shauffler, 1995:685).

    Some Nicaraguans go so far as to join in negative stereotyping of their own compatriots referring to other Nicaraguans as them instead of saying us.  And sometimes this means even degrading them.  One parent who labeled herself Hispanic told me that she has not felt much discrimination, yet she herself seems to discriminate against other Nicaraguans claiming, “they are too loud and obnoxious.”  She also maintains that Nicaraguans are not very supportive of each other: “They are not united, like Cubans.”  Clearly she was setting herself apart from other Nicaraguans and has maintained the idea that there is strength in the unity she perceives among Cubans.

    When I asked another parent, who also identifies herself as Hispanic, if she has ever been discriminated against she runs her hands through her tinted blond hair and says, “No, I don’t look like a Nicaraguan, so I am not discriminated against.” In other words, she does not look Indian and is well aware that ‘they’ are discriminated against, even in Miami.  This idea is reminiscent of her daughter Leanna’s reasoning for being discriminated against by Cubans: “they think we’re Indians,” Leanna told me.

    Discrimination is not the only factor driving these immigrants toward a broad “Hispanic” or “Latin” label.   Portes and Macleod contend, “Embracing new pan-ethnic identities brings immigrants into line with the perceptions of the host society and gives them strength in number in their dealings with the state and other institutions” (Portes and Macleod 1996:543).  Thus the Hispanic label may reflect Nicaraguans efforts at self-assertion and a more inclusive solidarity with Cubans, Miami’s dominant group.

    Not only do many Nicaraguans reject the label  “Nicaraguan,” but they also alter their speech.  Virtually all the immigrant adolescents at Coral High prefer to speak English. However it is the peculiar reasoning for the rapid adoption and consistent use of English that is particularly noteworthy.  In a small apartment I had a conversation with 15-year-old Yhira. Yhira, who migrated when she was six years old told me before that she feels discriminated against by Cubans and other Hispanics in Miami.  She uses her English skills to dodge this discrimination. “What do you think is the main reason why Cubans discriminate against you?” I asked her.  With her distinct Spanish-influenced, urban accent, Yhira explains in English, “Because we talk different, ya know, and we don’t understand each other...a lot different...it’s the type of words we use...Ya know, not only Cubans, but other people...for the English word ‘you’ they (Cubans and others) say ‘tu’.  But the Nicaraguans, ya know, they say ‘vos’.  When others hear that they start laughing or something.”

    Another Nicaraguan student, Diana, proclaims, “It’s better to talk in English. At my church, there are a lot of Colombians and Venezuelans who speak Spanish differently, so its better to speak English”. Interestingly Diana does not believe there is racial discrimination in economic opportunities in the US.  After a pause, she reflects, “but....maybe there is discrimination if they don’t speak English”.  Diana, Yhira, and others indicated that speaking English frees them from discrimination.  If Nicaraguans are looked down upon by others, speaking English frees them from being a part of this Nicaraguan segment and puts them on an equal level with everyone else.  In their context, everyone else means other Hispanics.

    The irony is obvious. In Miami students are learning and speaking English to become more “Hispanic.”  In many ways this may be seen as positive in terms of academic achievement for the recent arrivals.  If they learn English quickly and successfully they will in turn adapt better in non-ESOL classes where they need the English-language skills.

    In order to nurture their aspirations to achieve in America, many “midway” Nicaraguans have associated themselves with a broad Hispanic segment and avoided their distinctive Nicaraguan Spanish dialect.  They perceive that in doing so they are avoiding discrimination and strengthening their position for achieving their goals for success.

    Unlike the newer arrived Nicaraguans, the midways’ main concern is not always academic achievement.  They have been denied the opportunity to carry with them a sense of who they are or where they come from.  The preoccupation with fitting into the mainstream is of great importance.
Three students serve as typical examples of this category.  Because of their minority status, each of these students has a preoccupation with something else other than achieving academic success.  One of these students is Marlon, a Nicaraguan immigrant who migrated to Miami with his family when he was five years old.  He claims to not remember anything about Nicaragua and does not label himself Nicaraguan.  He asserts that he does not speak fluent Spanish even though I have heard him do so with his parents who speak Spanish predominantly in their home. He goes as far as labeling his parents “refies.”  While sitting at the school picnic tables he told me, “Well...I don’t speak to them much. I’m never home.  They speak ‘refie’ Spanish.”  When I bring up the subject of him being from Nicaragua he changes the subject, “I don’t know about that Shit.”  The conversation is cut short as he periodically greets his friends passing by with, “hey bro” and a hand slap. Marlon has mastered the art of fitting-in, a talent that does not necessarily require positive academic orientation. His grades continually slip and he skips class often. The day of our chat at the picnic tables he thanks me graciously for getting him out of class.

    A similar case is that of Diana.  When I met Diana at the beginning of her freshman year she had told me how she participated with her family in almost all her social activities, including activities involving her church.  Her sister was her best friend, and her mother she described as “my precious mom.”  Her father had told me, “While most Americans are too busy working, family and church is the most important thing for us.”  Now, over two years later, Diana who has reached beyond “refie” status has become distant from her family. She no longer participates in her church and is embarrassed to have her mom pick her up from school, fearful that her peers will discover her Nicaraguan heritage.

    Although Diana has quickly forgotten where she is from, her family in Miami and Nicaragua has not.  While in Nicaragua I sat on the patio of a rustic home in Managua.  There I spoke with Diana’s Aunt Clara.  Clara periodically visits her extended family in Miami and views Diana’s new philosophy toward her identity from a relatively objective perspective.  She told me, “Diana, has a problem...She has blond hair and light eyes.  She is embarrassed of her family because they are Nicaraguan.  She thinks that because she is going to school in America she can do anything she wants.”  Diana now spends most of her free time working at a trendy clothing store in the local shopping mall.  She is now part of the popular crowd.  She fits in, at the cost of conflict with her family.  During my conversation with Diana’s Aunt Clara in Managua she excused herself to join other family members in helping care for her husband who has fallen ill.  “We take care of our families here.”  She then echoed the words of Diana’s father, “While Americans are busy working, the family is the most important thing to us.”

    Diana’s case exemplifies how the number of years of US residence influence adolescents’ categorical ideas of the family.   Most adolescents of Hispanic origin have a much different idea about the family than do those adolescents with generations of family born in the US.  During the transitional phase of adolescence, Hispanic teens go from being children to gaining more responsibility for their family and thus become more of a provider.  However, the transitional phase of adolescence in the US appears to be that of going from being children to being independent.  The primary difference is that while Hispanic adolescents are moving closer to their families during adolescence, Americans are moving away, towards independence. Sometimes this move towards independence is played out in rebellious behavior.  This causes a conflict for those families with teenagers who are not only becoming adults, but becoming “American.”  For the same reason Nicaraguan students are refusing to speak Nicaraguan Spanish and labeling themselves “Hispanic/Latin” rather than Nicaraguan. They are moving quickly away from traditional Latin ideas of family solidarity.

    Sitting with a group of both Cuban and Nicaraguan students in a science classroom I was encompassed with the youths’ complaints about their overly-strict Hispanic parents.  “Hispanic parents don’t let you do anything,” I heard along with, “Your parents were American right? I’ll bet you could do anything you wanted!”  The feelings were mutual among these Cuban and Nicaraguan adolescents as they reiterated, “My parents don’t realize, this is America! When I have kids I’m gonna’ give them some space, let them be independent!”

    As the circumstances of Diana and Marlon illustrate, the Nicaraguan students who have been here long enough to understand their position in the society, but short enough to still have some connections to a Nicaraguan identity, surface as having poorer academic orientation  and greater family conflict.  These two students, like most of the adolescents who fall into this “midway” category, have other priorities over academic achievement.  They have found other ways out of minority status.

    This category of students also has had the strongest burden of deportation threats.  They have been here long enough to want to stay, but not long enough to become residents in the eyes of the government.   Recent immigration reform laws targeted at Nicaraguans have many Nicaraguan students from this midways’ category facing the possibility of deportation back to Nicaragua, in relatively large numbers compared to that of other immigrant groups such as Cubans.  Maria, a Nicaraguan adolescent who has been living in the US for over nine years faced that possibility.  Last Spring she told me that she received a deportation letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), even before her mother did.  Her concern with school and academic achievement became secondary to her legal status. Last summer at the age of 16 she married to secure her legal status.  Ironically, her newfound husband is a Cuban immigrant teenager who migrated to the US around the same time Maria did.  He achieved legal status easily. The marriage is symbolic of the enclave community.  Maria’s marrying a Cuban makes her legally assimilated.

The Americans: Those who have lived here all or most of their lives

    The final cohort of immigrants I will discuss are those who are either second generation or migrated as infants. On the surface, they are much like the ‘midways.’ They dress in the trendy fashions, speak English with frequent reversion to the “Cubonics” dialect and often do not take their education seriously. The “Americans” speak of Nicaragua, but have little or no dual-frame-of-reference.  Nicaragua, to them, is a romanticized reconstruction. They have no empirical personal knowledge of how relatively advantaged their families have become by migrating to the US nor do they perceive educational opportunities in the US as special.

    Patricia, whose mother was pregnant with her during migration, tells me what she knows of her family’s life in Nicaragua.  Her eyes light up as she describes the colorful parades where the Gigantona (or traditional gigantic lady) marches through the streets of Managua; or about the beautiful beaches and mountains.  “Wait!  I’ve got pictures!” she exclaims. She hasn’t seen the hardships of the country.  When I ask Patricia to tell me more about this she says, “Well, I don’t mean to brag, but my family was rich in Nicaragua, and now my dad has to work so hard.”  However, she is not apprehensive about her own future.  She believes that she will have more opportunities than her parents have had in the US.

    Because many were born in the US, and thus are American citizens, these students do not carry the non-legal status burden of the others, including fear of deportation.  They are American in the eyes of the legal system and in many ways “American” or “Hispanic” in the eyes of their peers.
Humberto was born in the US, a second generation Nicaraguan.  Humberto who is active in the school band and on the football team aspires to be either a musician or a football player and sees himself achieving one of these goals in the future.  He may appear as a typical American teenager except for the fact that he speaks fluent Spanish with his father and labels himself  Nicaraguan-American, even though he knows little about Nicaragua.  During a survey I ask if he has ever felt discriminated against and he answers simply, “no.”   Humberto’s father has accepted the fact that his son is American and is happy about this as long as he remains an honors student.  Being a first generation Nicaraguan in the US, Humberto’s father says he has experienced discrimination.  “I’ve heard people at work say rude remarks.”  I ask if it is a particular group or nationality and he asserts, “No. Anybody. White, Black, even other Hispanics.  It’s difficult being Nicaraguan. Cubans get more opportunities. They are able to move up in the work place easier.”  He believes that he is treated differently at his job as a supervisor in a City of Miami office downtown and he sometimes feels unwelcome in public places. But when asked about Humberto, his concerns are quite different. He tells me Humberto will not have problems in work or in life for reasons of discrimination, but he may have trouble because of poor education and the poor influences he is exposed to. “Humberto is American.  He has lived here all his life....but I know some of the young people here are in gangs and drugs.  That worries me.  But Humberto is smart. We make sure he does well in school.”
Humberto is assimilated to the point that neither he nor his father feel the burden of discrimination for him. They are aware of how some groups in the school, mostly the newer arrivals, hold a subordinate position, but Humberto has not experienced it himself.  He may be viewed as an ideal American teenager--he plays on the football team, attends honors classes, and talks about which Universities he wants to attend.  But at the same time he speaks Spanish in his home, “Cubonics” at school, and enjoys eating Latin food.

    These students are assimilating, but not quite into mainstream American culture.   Rather they are assimilating into a peculiar Miami segment of Hispanic/Latino-American culture.  The so-called minority they are associating themselves with is locally an actual majority, a group with power and status both within the high school and in the broader community.  But to what extent Nicaraguans are able to be accepted depends on several variables including consequences of discrimination, homeland references, and legal status.

Conclusion

    Earlier research found that immigrant students tend to have a more positive academic orientation than native minorities (inter alia Ogbu 1991).  More recent research has asserted that new immigrants of color who settle in inner-cities are likely to assimilate into a segment of American culture that can have negative consequences for their academic orientation (Portes and Zhou, 1993).  This research confirms and extends both of these earlier generalizations.
Recently arrived Nicaraguan high school students in Miami, referred to as refies locally, fit Ogbu’s and other’s depictions of immigrant students who positively value school because of their dual frame of reference.  The recently arrived students have personal, often vivid memories of their families’ suffering and the deficient schools they left back in their homeland.  While Miami schools may not be perfect, they offer hope and opportunity.

    Nicaraguan immigrants who have been in the US longer or those who were born in the US of immigrant parents are assimilating not to general US mainstream society, but to the particular segment that constitutes their immediate environment, Cuban or more generally Hispanic/Latino Miami.  The stigma that confronts refies, their peculiar Nicaraguan accent, the epithets of being Indians, propels an identity transformation away from their national identity to the locally dominant culture.  The midways migrated six to ten years ago.  While they speak English in class and dress like mainstream American adolescents, they speak a mix of English and Spanish to each other, Spanglish or Cubonics, and Spanish to their parents.  Many prefer American rock and roll, but many also still listen to Miami’s Latin pop radio stations.  They all eat pizza and hamburgers, but they still continue to eat Latin food frequently, too.  Many also take their schooling seriously although their actual achievement frequently suffers.  The midways still remember Nicaragua, but their focus is here and not back there.  The Americans speak, dress and act like the midways, but Nicaragua is even less important to them.  They do not have graphic memories of Nicaraguan schools and opportunities.  They are much more likely to express American adolescent disaffection from education.

    Rather than static categories, these identities are stages, particularly refies and midways.  Nicaraguan immigrant students begin as refies.  The category is imposed upon them because of their Nicaraguan accent and unhip clothing.  While a few psychologically strong teenagers resist the discrimination against Nicaraguans, most feel compelled to change their identity, to assimilate to the local norms and adopt an Hispanic identity.  Thus, they move from being refies to midways.  The Americans, on the other hand, are unlikely to have begun as refies. They have been socialized and enculturated in the US and never stigmatized by epithet. They have a more stable ethnic identity.  It remains a segmentary identity.  They are Hispanics, but Hispanics who are Americans.
Those Nicaraguans who are segmentarily assimilating do not necessarily risk the downward mobility described by Portes and Zhou.  These Nicaraguan students live in a neighborhood and attend a high school that is working and middle class.  They are not in the inner-city.  They are not surrounded by an ethnic segment of American society that perceived blocked opportunity and little hope.  Cubans dominate both the adolescent high school culture and the broader Miami area.  Becoming Hispanic/Latino offers an opportunity for, not the foreclosure of, advancement.

    The potentially positive consequences of segmentary, rather than mainstream assimilation reflect both Miami’s already accomplished transformation and a possible future for some other American cities.  Hispanic/Latinos, led by Cubans, have become the locally dominant group.  Both the City and County have a Cuban mayor, along with the majority of each body’s Commissioners. The MDCPS school superintendent is Cuban. Two of the local Congressional Representatives are Cuban as is a majority of the State legislative representatives. Cubans and other Latinos head the major banks and development industries. Many among the politically powerful and economically successful are bilingual and many speak English with a strong Spanish accent.  Unlike the case of Mexicans in the Southwest or Puerto Ricans in the Northeast, being Hispanic/Latino in Miami closes few doors and opens many more.  The local context thus encourages segmentary assimilation, an Americanization with an accent.  One is better off by learning English, but knowing English and Spanish is better yet.

    These conditions do not apply for Mexicans in the southwestern US. Powerful and successful Mexican Americans almost never speak with an accent.  One must become more thoroughly mainstream American to succeed in a local context dominated by “Anglos,” or non-Hispanic Whites as the US Census refers to the dominant US ethnic population. However, Miami may not be utterly unique. In parts of California, Asians have come to dominate in a way that parallels Hispanic/Latinos in Miami. In Monterey Park, California in particular, Asians control or at least are a powerful influence in both its politics and economics (Horton, 1995; Fong, 1994).  The new immigration thus has a number of consequences for the constitution of American society and the assimilation of immigrants into it.  First, in a few cases, those immigrants can establish sufficient power locally to dominate and thus change the course of assimilation, prodding new immigrants to assimilate into a particular ethnic segment of American society, rather than mainstream, ethnically white American society.  Second, individual immigrants, especially adolescents, are likely to go through stages of assimilation.  Finally and most importantly, the consequences of segmentary assimilation vary dramatically according to the amount of power the ethnic segment has in the broader society.  Assimilating into a poor, ethnic minority, inner-city segment is more likely to increase the probability of downward mobility (see Portes and Zhou; Stepick 1998).  On the other hand, assimilating into an economically and politically powerful segment can be as or even more rewarding than assimilating into mainstream American society.

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