Post-1965 Immigration and STEM Faculty in Island Communities

• In Event: 3251 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 17. Schools and Education

Abstract

Beginning in the 1960s, the United States and other nation-states began to reformulate their immigration policies to prioritize the entry of immigrants based on professional qualifications, educational level, and socioeconomic status. These policies have created what is often referred to as international “battle for talent,” as many high-tech fields have come to rely on the labor of immigrants from the Global South. Despite a vast increase in the entry of “high-skilled” immigrants, there has been a dearth of sociological studies focusing on the experiences of high-skilled immigrants in the United States. Much of the existing literature presents high-skilled immigrants as economic agents who are motivated to move and settle based on the demands of an international labor market. Our findings based on in-depth qualitative interviews with foreign-born academic faculty members complicate this narrative. While many of the foreign-born faculty that we interviewed initially immigrated to pursue educational and employment opportunities, they became place-based due to dynamics within their personal lives. The decision to stay in the United States—and more specifically Hawaii—often led foreign-born faculty to accept positions in which they were overqualified and underpaid. These findings challenge traditional theories of immigrant integration, which assume that immigrants with high capital will experience upward mobility with relative ease, as we explore the ways in which high-skilled immigrants experience cumulative disadvantages in the labor market due to their race, gender, and nativity. These findings are a part of a larger project focusing on the experiences of academic faculty in community colleges funded by an NSF ADVANCE grant.

Authors

• Nathalie P. Rita, University of Hawaii

• Marina Karides, University of Hawai'i at Hilo