ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that educational institutions are inadequately serving the needs of immigrant populations when compared with other low-income groups. It shows how the children of migrant worker population studied in educational institutions with the best intensions, often because of complex reasons, actually end up perpetuating inequality. The chapter discusses the oversight of a special program at California State University to prepare children of migrant farm workers for college. It deals with the interviews of a different migrant student under a cluster of weeping willow trees far out on the South Quad of the campus. The obstacles that Mexican immigrants encounter are similar to the ones that other disadvantaged Americans endure. The reality for many Mexican immigrants is that they under constant fear of forced return to Mexico. The cultural misfit with American higher education also functions in a very practical sense with the students who become young parents.
