Good news

In the midst of bad health news, Vincent and I joined Stephanie in greeting some good school/job/career news. Recall that Stephanie and her students hosted her school district’s superintendent and a school board member, with whom she spoke about her students’ test scores and her students’ work (and the school board member wrote her back a nice note Friday). Recall also that I found out that there are NOT supposed to be mass layoffs on May 1, as there often are at the Presbyterian Center every other May 1.

Friday evening I learned that – for only the second time in my 15 years of experience participating in American Sociological Association annual meetings – the association has accepted a presentation I proposed as a presentation at a full-blown session, where I will sit with several other presenters and speak to a real audience. I’ve participated in plenty of ASA meeting roundtables (which sometimes go well and sometimes don’t) and I’ve given presentations at full-blown sessions at various religion and history conferences. But, only once before, at an ASA meeting did I make such as a presentation, about masculinity themes in the stories men involved in the abortion conflict told about their lives.

This time, I’ll be talking about another, non-Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) research project, ongoing, my “Minnesota project.” I’ve explored the experiences of Hmong (pronounced MUNG) and Korean Americans in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and Cuban Americans and Haitian Americans in South Florida. Through looking at their experiences, I’ve theorized that, if immigrant communities are oriented towards the United States and a single other culture tied with a national state (such as Korean Americans and Korea, Haitian Americans and Haiti), they are more likely to try to assimilate in the United States. If they are linked with the United States and either a continental culture (such as Cuban Americans and Latin America) or a diasporic culture with no national state (such as Hmong Americans and the Hmong diaspora) (the Hmong are a minority group primarily in south China and Laos), they are more likely to form a more self-contained enclave communities. The presentation will be called: “Bright Lights, Big Cities: Incorporation Paths of Diverse Cultural Communities in U.S. Metropolitan Areas.” The meeting is in Boston, where I hope to be reunited with several old friends. How I will get there, where I will stay, and how much my office will support my trip/stay, as training and development, remains to be seen.

Monday Vincent also got good news. Unfortunately but predictably, after half a week home with his father in Ohio, he came home sick Sunday night. But he was home Monday to check the mail and found in the mail the report of his ACT scores, from the test administration just a month ago, at school, that the state of Kentucky had paid for. Vincent had scored a 19 on the ACT pre-test he took a year ago. We hoped he’d get a score in at least the low 20s, which with some schools might make them pay less attention to his mediocre grade point average/class rank. If he earned a score in the high 20s, he might even be a plausible candidate for merit scholarships at private schools (although his grades would continue to limit this effect).

When Vincent opened the mail Monday, he had scored a 27! He’s been continuing to review math (and will take pre-calculus next year), which may help him raise his math score of 22. (The other scores were: ). We’re excited and proud him and this is a nice birthday present to himself (Vincent’s birthday is Sunday) that may open some college options for him (not only in terms of admissions but possible also in terms of aid/scholarships). Good work, Vincent!

Late-breaking news from Stephanie: Stephanie's principal (pictured in an earlier blog entry) completed and revealed to Stephanie today her annual evaluation of Stephanie's work, an evaluation which was very good. Stephanie received "Excellent" ratings for everything. Stephanie reminded me that an ACT score of 27 would be good enough - if Vincent's overall high school grade-point average - to qualify Vincent for the prestigious Honors program at Western Kentucky University, which is the school he's most keen about attending so far. (In his ACT report, Vincent is ranked as in the top 50% in his class (by grade point average), but - for absolute GPA - apparently both supplied by high school counselors - they cite Vincent's first-year GPA, which was not very good (and would not have put him in the top 50% of his class). I'm not sure why the counselors did this. To enter Murray, for example, Vincent would need either a GPA of 3.0 or above, or in the top 50 percent of his class, and an ACT score in the mid-20s, so this might do it.

(Pictured above are Hmong American children performing at the sixth grade graduation ceremony at Vincent's St. Paul Hmong American majority school, towards the end of our year in Minnesota five years ago.)