This thesis uses the framework of a program evaluation to highlight the human experience of participants in a community-based family literacy program in the context of a “New Destination” for Latino immigrants. There is first an extensive discussion of how Latino immigrant communities have changed over time in Oregon and specifically in Lane County, followed by description of the nonprofit organizations that cater to these communities in Lane County, with specific focus on Downtown Languages and their Pilas Family Literacy Program. A selection of literature is reviewed surrounding the themes of the efficacy of program evaluation as a tool, “New Destinations,” the relationship between bilingualism and family in ESL programs, and finally a brief discussion of cultural competency in ESL practices and literacy as human capital. The conclusion of this research contains recommendations for the Pilas Family Literacy Program, as well as other family literacy programs operating in “New Destinations” communities.

In the United States, many, including those who are native-born and those who settle here, faithfully espouse the American Dream. Commonly, higher education is seen as the main pathway to achieve this and success more broadly. However, not much discussion or consideration is given to the processes by which immigrants and their children must adjust and settle into a new country, community, and schooling system in order to achieve entrance into institutions of higher education. Several factors influence the difficulties that immigrant and their descendants will experience, as well as the pathways of mobility available to them. Perhaps one of the most important factors affecting immigrants’ circumstances is the local context in which they are received. The primary goal of this dissertation is to uncover the factors facilitating Mexican students’ transition into higher education as well as how local context affects this process and their broader treatment in southeastern Pennsylvania and New York City. This dissertation addresses two main research questions: What factors and mechanisms facilitate Mexican students’ transition into higher education, and how does local context influence this process. The first question seeks to identify the resources and difficulties that Mexican students encounter in their educational trajectory in order to analyze how these students and their parents are being received in their communities of settlement and how this affects their mobility. The second question aims to specify the extent to which local circumstances influence not just educational attainment and mobility, but also discrimination and racialization. While much, namely assimilation, research has examined this group’s mobility and integration, it has not adequately theorized the effect of location on mobility and integration. Additionally, assimilation research prioritizes mobility and integration over discrimination and racialization. While research on Mexican’s discrimination and racialization is not as prevalent, it also does not focus on how location affects these dynamics. Taking existing scholarship’s inadequacies into account and since most research on US Mexicans is focused on those living in the southwest, it is crucial to investigate the mobility, integration, discrimination, and racialization that Mexicans experience in locations outside of the southwest. Given that this project is concerned with understanding young Mexican’ experiences with education and settlement, qualitative inquiry is employed because it provides an opportunity to intricately observe social life. Sixty individuals, thirty-five are 1.5- and second-generation Mexicans from southeastern Pennsylvania, and twenty-five are second-generation and undocumented individuals from New York City, were interviewed for this study. All Pennsylvania respondents attended the same university and all New York respondents attended the same college. Criteria to participate in this research included having parents who migrated to the United States from Mexico, attended high school in Pennsylvania or New York, and being enrolled in the selected college in each state. The latter two criteria are efforts to make sure that participants have spent a significant amount of time living or a significant phase of their lives—especially high school and the transition to college—in the states under investigation in order to gauge the coming of age and higher education experiences of young Mexicans in these new destinations Chapters two, three, and four encompass the empirical sections of this dissertation. Chapter two examines participants’ communities and schools in Southeastern Pennsylvania and New York City as well as their families’ characteristics. Such an examination demonstrates how students’ local circumstances have a tremendous impact on their (educational) mobility because this context is where other significant factors such as family, school, community, and social networks exert their influence. Moreover, local contexts as well as populations are shown to affect the types of resources and constraints that respondents encountered along their educational pathways. Time of migration and arrival by participants’ families in their respective communities also plays a vital role in respondents’ educational attainment. Participants’ transitions into young adulthood are also shaped by their local contexts. This chapter provides vital insights given its location-based analytical lens of educational attainment and young adulthood. Chapter three analyzes the ways in which respondents are racialized as Mexicans and immigrants. Here respondents’ experiences in their respective high schools, university, college, and southeastern Pennsylvania and New York City are looked at. As well as local context, local populations also influence the ways in which respondents experience racialization as well as various forms of discrimination and microaggressions. Respondents’ encounters with these race-based forms of denigration illuminate the multiple ways in which Mexican students’ transition from high school to higher education and beyond can be made more difficult, blocked, and ultimately stopped. Although respondents are educationally successful, this has not translated into structural assimilation. This chapter contributes toward the building of a context-based theory of integration and racialization. Chapter four addresses the main question behind this project: what factors and mechanisms facilitate students’ transition from high school to college. Across both locations, students’ entrance into institutions of higher education is aided by the presence of multiple factors working in different combinations for each student; mainly relationships with mentors, friends, and family as well as participation in programs geared specifically to help marginalized students gain entrance into higher education. Local context influences the amount and density of resources that students have at their disposal toward their entrance into college. Such factors are significant because of the ways in which they counteract or buffer some of the constraints, difficulties, and racialization that students encounter in their pursuit of higher education. For Pennsylvania students especially, it appears to be more useful to consider the theory of cumulative causation or self-perpetuation of international migration—where each instance of migration generates more social capital and consequently a higher likelihood of additional migration in sending communities—and not just assimilation perspectives to understand how Mexican higher education attainment occurs. / Sociology