Chapter 2: “Good Kids,” But “Poor Students”: The Academic Identities of Refugee High School Students From Vietnam’s Central Highlands

The messages immigrant and refugee students receive in school play a particularly poignant role in their acculturation and in shaping their sense of belonging and aspirations in and beyond school (Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2001; Valenzuela, 1999). Indeed, the sentiment expressed to me by a well-meaning yet overwhelmed guidance counselor regarding one of the students in my study during a visit to Franklin High School¹ (FHS) opened my eyes to a variety of contradictions in how students are often viewed and come to view themselves in school. More broadly, it underscores how the intersection of social factors (including race, culture, and language) and social contexts plays out in the daily experiences of many immigrant and refugee students in U.S. public schools.