Tightly Focused Survey Reflects Wider Trends

The Times’ findings on Belmont High’s Class of ’89 parallel several recent studies of Southern California immigrants.

Studies have found that immigrants tend to move up in economic status and homeownership. But researchers have also found disparities in education and income between Asian and Latino immigrants--California’s two fastest-growing groups.

The Times study is based on an unusual approach. It studied the mobility of one group of new arrivals. By tracking a single group over time, The Times conducted what is known as a “longitudinal” examination.

Other research on immigrants typically relies on huge samples of census, economic and other data.

Such data are useful in identifying broad trends: for example, the rate of people living in poverty in Los Angeles over the years.

One drawback, however, is that the most detailed and reliable census data are collected only once every 10 years. And that information is based on places, such as Los Angeles County, a ZIP Code or a census tract. But the people in those places are not the same from census to census.

Studies like The Times’ can offer a more accurate picture of individuals. They are less common, partly because they are costly and time consuming, but they can add a rich dimension to other, sometimes conflicting reports.

For example, UCLA’s David Hayes-Bautista and Pepperdine University’s Gregory Rodriguez have argued in a series of studies that Latino immigrants are making steady strides toward the middle class. They cite high rates of job participation and home buying.

Similar trends emerge in The Times’ study.

But The Times also found strong support for more cautionary research on Latino immigrants by the Rand Corp.’s Georges Vernez. In a series of studies, Vernez has warned that Latinos, including immigrants and later generations, are lagging in educational attainment.

Latinos “fall behind at every stage of the educational process, from early childhood to high school and college completion,” Vernez concluded in a 1998 study.

A disproportionate share of Latino children, he wrote, “may not be adequately prepared to compete” for jobs requiring at least some college education.

In the same vein, the Latino students in The Times’ study failed to obtain high school diplomas or general equivalency certificates at three times the rate of Asians and were several times more likely to have ended their education at 12th grade.